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* 






CHANTICLEER: 


THANKSGIVING STORY 


OF 



by/ 

CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS .BY BARLEY. 


ftlxi-iorfc: 

THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

119 &L 121 NASSAU STREET. 




4 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, hy Cornbliu^ 
Mathews, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, tor 
the Southern District of New -York. 


PREFACE. 


Shall the glorious festival of Thanksgiving, now yearly cele- 
brated all over the American Union (said the author to himself 
one day ), be ushered in with no other trumpet than the proclama- 
tion of State Governors ? May we not have a little holiday-book 
of our own, in harmony with that cherished Anniversary, which, 
while it pleases our fellow-countrymen, should it have that good 
fortune, may acquaint distant strangers with the observance of 
that happy custom of our country ? With the hope that it may 
be so received, and as a kindly word spoken to all classes and 
sections of his fellow-citizens, awakening a feeling of union and 
fraternal friendship at this genial season, the writer presents this 
little volume of home characters and incidents. 


V 


\ 


# 



• CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER I. — The Landscape of the Stoey 9 

CHAFTER II. — Areival of the Merchant and his People. . 21 

CHAPTER III.— The Farmer-folks from the West 32 

CHAPT’ER IV.— The Children 42 

CHAPTER V. — The Fashionable Lady and her Son 54 

CHAPTER VI.— The Fortunes of the Family Considered. . . 61 

CHAPl'ER VII.— The Thanksgiving Sermon 78 

CHAFPER VIII.— The Dinner 93 

CHAPTER IX. — The New-comers 102 

CHAPTER X.— The Conclusion 115 



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4 



















CHAPTER FIRST. 


THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY. 

1 SEE old Sylvester Peabody — the head of the Peabody 
tamily — seated in the porch of his country dwelling, like 
an ancient patriarch, in the calm of the morning. His 
broad-brimmed hat lies on the bench at his side, and his 
venerable white locks flow down his shoulders, which time 
in one hundred seasons of battle and sorrow, of harvest 
and drouth, of toil and death, in all his hardy wrestlings 
with old Sylvester, has not been able to bend. The old 
man’s form is erect and tall, and lifting up his head to its 
Leight, he looks afar, down the country road which leads 
from his rural door, towards the city. He has kept his gaze 
in that direction for better than an hour, and a mist has 
trraduallv crept upon his vision ; objects begin to lose their 


10 


CHANTICLEER. 


distinctness; they grow dim or soften away like ghosts or 
spirits; the whole landscape melts gently into a pictured 
dew before him. Is old Sylvester, who has kept it clear 
and bright so long, losing his sight at last, or is our com- 
mon world, already changing under the old patriarch’s pure 
regard, into that better, heavenly land ? 

It seemed indeed, on this very calm morning in Novembei*, 
as if angels were busy about the Old Homestead (which 
lies on the map, in the heart of one of the early States of 
our dear American Union), transforming all the old familiar 
things into something better and purer, and touching them 
gently with a music and radiance caught from the very sky 
itself. As in the innocence of beauty, shrouded in sleep, 
dreams come to the eyelids which are the realities of the 
day, with a strange loveliness — the fair country lay as it 
were in a delicious dreamy slumber. The trees did not 
stand forth boldly with every branch and leaf, but rather 
seemed gentle pictures of trees; the sheep-bells from the 
hills tinkled softly, and as if whispering a secret to the wind; 
the birds sailed slowly to and fro on the air ; there was no 
harshness in the low of the herds, no anger in the heat of 
the sun, not a sight nor a sound, near by nor far off, which 
did not partake of the holy beauty of the morning, nor 
sing, nor be silent, nor stand still, nor move, with any other 
than a gliding sweetness and repose, or an under-tone which 
might have been the echo, here on earth, of a better sphere. 
There was a tender sadness and wonder in the face of old 


THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY. 11 

Sylvester, when a voice came stealing in upon the silence. 
It did not in a single tone disturb the heavenly harmony of 
the hour, for it was the voice of the or2)han dependent of 
the house, Miriam Haven, whose dark-bright eye and grace- 
ful form glimmered, as though she were the spirit of al’ the 
softened beauty of the scene, from amid the broom-corn, 
where she was busy in one of the duties of the season. 
Well might she sing the song of lament, for her people 
had gone down far away in the sea, and her lover — where 
was he ? 

Far away — far away are tney. 

And I in all the world alone— 

Brightly, too brightly, shines the day— 

Dark is the land where they are gone ! 

I liave a friend that’s far aw ir, 

Unknown the clime that bears his tread ; 

Perchance he walks in light to-day — 

He may be dead ! he may be dead ! 

Like every other condition of the time, the voice of Mi- 
riam, too, had a change in it. 

“ What wonder is this ?” said old Sylvester, “ I neither 
hear nor see as I used — are all my senses going ?” 

He turned, as he spoke, to a woman of small stature, in 
whose features dignity and tenderness mingled, as she now 
regarded him, with reverence for the ancient head of the 
house. She came forward as he addressed her, and laying 
her hand gently on his arm, said — 


12 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ You forget, father ; this is the Indian summer, which 
is the first summer softened and soberer, and often comes 
at thanksgiving-time. It always changes the country, as 
you see it now.” 

“ Child, child, you are right. I should have known it, 
for always at this season, often as it has come to me, do I 
think of the absent and the dead — of times and hours and 
friends, long, long passed away. Of those whom I have 
known,” he continued eagerly, “ who have fallen in battle, 
in the toil of the field, on the highway, on the waters, in 
silent chambers, by sickness, by swords : I thank God they 
have all, all of my kith and kin and people, died with their 
names untouched with crime ; all,” he added with energy, 
planting his feet firmly on the ground and rising as he spoke 
sternly, “ all save one alone, and he — ” 

He turned towards the female at his side, and when he 
looked in her face, and saw the mournful expression which 
came upon it, he dropped back into his chair and stayed his 
speech. 

At this moment a little fellow, who, with his fiaxen locks 
and blue eyes, was a very cherub in plumpness and the 
clearness of his brow, came toddling out of the door of the 
house, struggling with a basin of yellow corn, which, shift- 
ing about in his arms, he just managed to keep possession 
of till he reached old Sylvester’s knee. This was little Sam 
Peabody, the youngest of the Peabodys, and as he looked 
up into his grandfather’s face you could not firil to see, 


THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY. 13 

though they grew so wide apart, the same story of passion 
and character in each. The little fellow began throwing 
the bright grain from the basin to a great strutting turkey 
which went marching and gobbling up and down the door- 
yard, swelling his feathers, spreading his tail, and shaking 
his red neck-tie with a boundless pretence and restlessness: 
like many a hero he was proud of his uniform, although 
the fatal hour which was to lay him low was not far off. It 
was the thanksgiving turkey, himself, in process of iattening 
under charge of Master Sam Peabody. Busy in the act, 
he was regarded with smiling fondness by his mother, the 
widow Margaret Peabody, and his old grandfather, when he 
suddenly turned, and said — 

“ Grandpa, where’s brother Elbridge ?” 

The old man changed his countenance and struggled a 
moment with himself. 

“He had better know all,” he said, after a pause of 
thought, in which he looked, or seemed to look afar off 
from the scene about him. “ Margaret, painful though it 
be to you and to me, let the truth be spoken. God knows 
I love your son, Elbridge, and would have laid down my 
life that this thing had not chanced ; but the child asks of 
his brother so often, and is so often evaded, that he will be 
presently snared in a net of falsehoods and deceptions if we 
speak not more plainly to him.” 

An inexpressible anguish overspread the countenance of 
the widowed woman, and she turned aside to breathe a 


14 


CHANTICLEER. 


brief prayer of trust and hope of strength in the hour of 
trial. 

The thanksgiving turkey, full of his banquet of corn, 
strutted away to a slope in the sun by the roadside, and 
little Sam Peabody renewed his question. 

“ Can’t I see brother Elbridge, grandpa ?” 

“ Never again, I fear, my child.” 

“ Why not, grandfather ?” 

“ Answer gently, father,” the widow interposed. “ Make 
not the case too harsh against my boy.” 

“ Margaret,” said the old man, lifting his countenance 
upon her with dignity of look, “ I shall speak the truth. I 
would have the name of my race pure of all stains and de- 
tractions, as it has been for a hundred years, but I would 
not bear hardly against your son, Margaret. This child, inno- 
cent and unswayed as he is, shall hear it, and shall be the 
judge.” 

Rising, old Sylvester, with Margaret’s help, lifted the boy 
to the deep window-seat; and, standing on either hand, the 
widow and ihe old man each at his side, Sylvester, taking 
one hand of the child in his, began — 

“ My child, you are the youngest of this name and house- 
hold ; to you God may have intrusted the continuance of our 
race and name, therefore thus early would I have you learn 
the lesson your brother’s errors may teach.” 

“ That should come last,” the widow interposed gently. 
“ The story itself should teach it, if the story be true.” 


THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY. 


15 


“ Perhaps it should , Margaret,” old Sylvester rejoined. 
“ I will let the story speak for itself. It is, my child, a year 
ago this day, that an excellent man, Mr. Barbary, the preacher 
of this neighborhood, disappeared from among living men. 
He was blameless in his life, he had no enemy on the face 
of the earth. He was a simple, frugal, worthy man. The 
last time alive, he was seen in company with your brother 
Elbridge, by the Locust-wood, near the pond where you go 
to gather huckleberries in the summer, and hazels in the 
autumn. He was seen with him, and seen no more.” 

“ But no man saw Elbridge, father, lift hand against 
him, or utter an angry word. On the contrary, they were 
seen entering the wood in close companionship, and smiling 
on each other.” 

“ Even so, Margaret,” said Sylvester, looking at the child 
steadily, and waving his hand in silence towards the widow. 
“ But what answer gave the young man when questioned of 
the whereabout of his friend ? Not a word, Margaret — not 
a word, my child.” 

“ Is Mr. Barbary dead, gi*andfather ?” the child inquired, 
* leaning forward. 

“ How else ? He is not to be found in pulpit or field. 
No man seeth his steps any more in their ancient haunts. 
No man hearkens to his voice.” 

“But the body, father, was never found. He may be 
still living in some other quarter.” 

“It was near the rock called High Point, you will re* 


16 


CHANTICLEER. 


member, and one plunge might have sent him to the bot- 
tom. The under currents of the lake are strong, and may 
have easily swept him away. There is but one belief 
through all this neighborhood. Ethan Barbary fell by the 
hand — Almighty God, that I should have to say it to you, 
my own grandson — of Elbridge Peabody.” 

The child sat for a moment in dumb astonishment, 
glancing, with distended eyes and sweat upon his brow, 
fearfully from the stern face of the old man to the downcast 
features of the widow, when recovering speech he asked : 

“ Why should my brother kill Mr. Barbary, if he was his 
friend? Was not Elbridge always kind, mother ? I’m sure 
he was to me, and used to let me ride old Sorrel before him 
to the mill !” 

“ Ever kind ? He was. There was not a day he did not 
make glad his poor mother’s heart, with some generous act 
of devotion to her. No sun set on the day which did not 
cheer her lonely hearth with a new light of gladness and 
peace from his young eyes.” 

“ Margaret, you forget. He was soft of heart, but proud 
of spirit, and haughty beyond his age ; you may not remem- * 
her, even I could not always look down his anger, or silence 
his loudness of speech. Why should he kill Mr. Barbary ? 

I will tell you, child : the preacher, too, had discerned well 
your brother’s besetting sin, and, being fearless in duty, 
from the Sabbath pulpit he spake of it plainly, and with 
such point that it could not fail to come home directly to 


THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STOEY. 17 

the bosom of the young man. This was on the very Lord’s 
day before Mr. Barbary disappeared from amongst us. It 
rankled in your brother’s bosom like poison; his passions 
were wild and ungoverned, and this was cause enough. If 
he had been innocent, why did Elbridge Peabody flee this 
neighborhood, like a thief in the night ?” 

“ Why did my brother Elbridge leave us, mother ?” said 
the child, bending eagerly towards the widow, who wrung 
her hands and was silent. 

“ He may come back,” said the child, shaking his flaxen 
locks, and not abashed in the least by her silence. “ He 
may come back yet and explain all to us.” 

“ Never !” 

At that very moment a red rooster, who stood with his 
burnished wings on the garden wall, near enough to have 
heard all that had passed, lifted up his throat, and poured 
forth a clear cry, which rang through the placid air far and 
wide. 

“ He will — I know he will,” said little Sam Peabody, 
leaping down from his judgment-seat in the window. 
“Chanticleer knows he will, or he would not speak in 
that way. He hasn’t crowed once before, you know, grand- 
father, since Elbridge went away ; we’ll hear from brother 
soon, I know we shall — I know we shall !” 

The little fellow, in his glee, clapped his hands and 
crowed too. The grandfather, looking on his gambols, 
smiled, but was presently sad again. 

2 


18 


CHANTICLEER. 


“Would to Heaven he may,” he said. “If they 
who should, to-day, we may learn of him — for to-day^ 
my children should come up from all the quarters of tho- 
land where they are scattered — the East, the West, the 
North, the South — ^to join with me in the festival of 
Thanksgiving which now draws near. My head is whitened 
with many winters, and T shall see them for the last time.” 
Sylvester continued : “ If they come — in this calm season, 
which, so soft and sweet, seems the gentle dawn of the com- 
ing world — we shall have, I feel, our last re-gathering on 
earth ! But they come not ; my eyes are weary with 
watching afar off, and I cannot yet discern that my chil- 
dren bear me in remembrance, in this grateful season of the 
year. Why do they not come ?” 

The aged patriarch of the family bowed his head and was 
silent. From the broom-corn the gentle voice stole again : 

Why sings the robin in the wood ? 

For him her music is not shed : 

Why blind-brook sparkle through the field ? 

He may be dead ! he may be dead ! 

The murmur of Miriam’s musical lamenting had scarceh 
died away on the dreamy air, when there came hurrying 
forward from the garden — where she had been tending the 
great thanksgiving pumpkin, which was her special charge 
— the black servant of the household, Mopsey by name, 
who, with her broad-fringed cap flying all abroad, and her 
great eyes rolling, spoke out as she approached — 


THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY. 


19 


“ Do hear dat, massa ?” 

“ I hear nothing, Mopsey.” 

“ Dere, don’t you hear’t now ? Dey’re coming !” 

With faces of curiosity, and ears erect, they listened. 
There was a peculiar sound in the air, and on closer atten- 
tion they discerned, in the stillness of the morning, the 
jingling traces of the stage-coach, on the cross-road, through 
the fields. 

* “They are not coming,” said old Sylvester, when the 
sound had died away in the distance ; “ the stage has taken 
the other road.” 

“ Dat may be, grandfather,” Mopsey spoke up, “ but for 
all dey may come. Ugly Davis, when he drive, don’t al- 
ways turn out of his way to come up here. Dey may be on 
de corner.” 

As Mopsey spoke, two figures appeared on foot on the 
brow of the road, which sloped down towards the Home- 
stead, through a feathery range of graceful locusts. They 
were too far off to be distinctly made out, but it was to be 
inferred that they were travellers from a distance, for one of 
them held against the light some sort of travelling bag or 
portmanteau ; one of them was in female dress, but this wa^ 
all they could as yet distinguish. Various conjectures were 
ventured as to their special character. They were unquestion- 
ably making for the Homestead, and it was to be reasonably 
supposed they were Peabodys, for strangers were rare upon 
that road, which was a by-way, off the main thoroughfare. 


20 


CHANTICLEER, 


\ 


The family gathered on the extreme out-look of the bal- 
cony, and watched with eager curiosity their approach, 
which was. slow and somewhat irregular — the man did not 
aid the woman in her progress, but straggled on apart, nor 
did he seem to address her as they came on. 


r. 




CHAPTER SECOND. 


ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT AND HIS PEOPLE. 

“ It is William and Hannah,” said the Patriarch, tower- 
ing above the household grouped about him, and gaining an 
advantage in observation from his commanding height. “ I 
am glad the oldest is the first to come !” 

When the two comers reached the door-yard gate, the 
man entered in without rendering the least assistance or 
paying the slightest heed to his companion, who followed 
humbly in his track. He was some sixty years of age, 
large-featured and inclining to tallness ; his dress was old- 
manish and plain, consisting of a long-furred beaver hat, a 
loose-made coat, and other apparel corresponding, with low 
cut shoes. He smiled as he came upon the balcony, greet- 
ing old Sylvester with a shake of the hand, but taking no 


22 


CHANTICLEER. 


notice whatever either of the widow, little Sam, or Mopsey. 
His wife, on the contrary, spoke to all, but quietly and sub- 
missively, which was, in truth, her whole manner. She was 
spare and withered, with a pinched, colorless face, con- 
strained in a scared and apprehensive look as though in 
constant dread of an impending violence or injury. Over 
one eye she wore a green patch, which greatly heightened 
the pallor and strangeness of her features. 

“Where’s the Captain and Henrietta?” old Sylvester 
asked when the greetings w^ere over. 

“ They started from the city in a chay,” he was answered 
by William Peabody, “ some hours before us, — the captain — 
seaman — way of driving irreg’lar. Nobody can tell what 
road he may have got into. Shouldn’t be surprised if didn’t 
arrive till to-morrow morning. Will always have high-ac- 
tioned horse.” 

William Peabody had scarcely spoken when th«re arose 
in the distance down the road, a violent cloud of dust, from 
which there emerged a two-wheeled vehicle, at a thundering 
pace, and which, in less than a minute’s time, went whirling 
past the Homestead. It was supposed to contain Captain 
Saltonstall and wife ; but what with the speed and dust, no 
eye could have guessed with any accuracy who or what 
they were. In less than a minute more it came sweeping 
back with the great white horse, passing the house again 
like an apparition, or the ghost of a horse and gig. With 
another sally down the road and return, with a long curve 


arriyal of the merchant. 


23 


in the road before the Homestead, it at last came to at the 
gate, and disclosed in a high sweat and glowing all over his 
huge person, the jovial Captain, and at his side his pretty 
little cherry-faced girl of a wife, Henrietta Peabody, daughter 
ot William Peabody, who, be it known, is old Sylvester’s 
oldest son. There also emerged from the one-horse gig, 
after the captain had made ground, and jumped his little 
wife to the same landing in his arms, a red-faced boy, who 
must have been closely stowed somewhere, for he came out 
of the vehicle highly colored, and looking very much as if 
he had been sat upon for a couple of hours or more. The 
Captain having freed his horse from the traces, and at old 
Sylvester’s suggestion, set him loose in the door-yard to 
graze at his leisure, rushed forward upon the balcony very 
much in the character of a good-natured tornado, saluted 
the widow Margaret with a whirlwind kiss, threw little Sam 
high in the air and caught him as he came within half an 
inch of the ground, shook the old grandfather’s readily ex- 
tended hand with a sturdy grasp, and wound up, for a mo- 
ment, with a great cuff on the side of the head with a roll 
of stuff for a new gown for Mopsey, saying as he delivered 
it, “ Here, what d’ye say to dat. Darkey !” 

Darkey brightened into a sort of nocturnal illumination, 
and shuffling away, in the loose shoes, to the keeping of 
which on her feet the better half of the best energies of her 
life were directed, gave out that she must be looking after 
dinner. 


24 


CHANTICLEER. 


It was but for a moment only that the Captain paused, 
and in less than five minutes he had said and done so many 
good-natured things, had shown himself so free of heart 
withal, and so little considerate of self or the figure he cut, 
that in spite of his great clumsy person, and the gash in his 
face, and the somewhat exorbitant character of his dress, his 
coat being a bob, as long and straight in the line across the 
back as the edge of a table, you could not help regarding 
him as a decidedly well-made, well-dressed, and quite hand- 
some person ; in fact, the Captain passed with the whole 
family for a fine-looking man. 

“ Where’s my little girl Miriam ?” asked the jovial Cap- 
tain, after a moment’s rest in a seat by the side of old 
Sylvester. “I must see my Dolphin, or she’ll think I’m 
growing old.” 

Being advised that the young lady in question was some- 
where within, the Captain rushed into the house, pursued 
by all the family in a body, save William Peabody, who 
remained with old Sylvester, seated and in silence. 

“ How go matters in the city, William ?” he said, re- 
moving his hand from his brow, where it had rested in 
contemplation for several minutes. 

“After the old fashion, father,” William Peabody an- 
swered, smiling with a fox-like glance at his father ; “ added 
three new houses to my property since last year.” 

“ Three new houses ?” 


ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT. 25 

“Three, all of brick, — good streets — built in the latest 
style. The city grows and I grow !” 

“ Three new houses, and all in the latest style — and how 
does Margaret’s little property pay ?” 

“Poorly, father, poorly. Elbridge made a bad choice 
when he bought it — greatly out of repair — rents come 
slowly.” 

“ In a word, the old story, the widow gets nothing again 
from the city. I had hopes you would be able to bring her 
some returns this time, for she needs it sadly.” 

“I do the best I can, but money’s not to be got out. 
of stone walls.” 

“ And you have three new houses which pay well,” old 
Sylvester continued, turning his calm blue eye steadily upon 
his son. 

“ Capital — best in the city ! Already worth twice I gave 
for ’em. The city grows and I grow !” 

“ My son, do you never think of that other house reserved 
for us all ?” 

William Peabody was about to answer, it was nonsense 
for a man only sixty, and in sound condition of body and 
mind, to think too much of that, when his eye ranging 
across the fields, espied in shadow as it were, through the 
dim atmosphere, the mist clearing away a little in that 
direction, an old sorrel horse — a long settler with the family 
and well known to all its members — staggering about feebly 


26 


CHANTICLEER. 


in a distant orchard, and in her wanderings stumbling 
against the trees. — “Is old Sorrel blind?” he asked, shading 
his own eyes from the light. 

“ She is, William,” old Sylvester replied ; “ her sight 
went from her last New-Yeai*’s dayr” 

“ My birthday,” said the merchant, a sudden pallor com- 
ing upon his countenance. 

“ Y es, you and old Sorrel are birth-mates, my son.” 

“We are ; she was foaled the day I was born,” said Wil- 
liam Peabody, and added, as to himself, musingly, “Old 
Sorrel is blind ! So we pass — so we pass — young to-day — 
to-morrow old — limbs fail us — sight is gone.” 

They sat silently, contemplating the still morning scene 
before them, and meditating, each in his own particular 
way, on the history of the past. 

To William, the merchant, it brought chiefly a recollec- 
tion how in his early manhood he had set out from those 
quiet flelds for a hard struggle with the world, with a bare 
dollar in his pocket, and when that was gone the whole 
world seemed to combine in a desperate league against him 
to prevent his achieving another. How at last, on the very 
edge of starvation and despair, he had wrung from it the 
means of beginning his fortunes ; and how he had gone on 
step by step, forgetting all the pleasant ties of his youth, all 
recollections of nature and cheerful faces of friends and 
kinsfolk, adding thousand to thousand, house to house; 
building, unlike Jacob, a ladder, that descended to the lower 


ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT. 


27 


world, up which all harsh and dark spirits perpetually 
thronged and joined to drag him down ; and yet he smiled 
grimly at the thought of the power he possessed, and how 
many of his early companions trembled before him because 
he was grown to be a rich man. , 

Old Sylvester, on the other hand, in all his memory had 
no thought of himself. His recollection ran back to the old 
times when his neighbors sat down under a king’s sceptre 
in these colonies ; how that chain had been freed ; how the 
gloomy Indian had withdrawn his face from their fields ; how 
the darkness of the woods had retired before the cheering 
sun of peace and plenty; and how, from a little people, 
his dear country, for whose welfare his sword had been 
stained, had grown into a great nation. Scattered up and 
down the long line of memory were faces of friends and kin- 
dred, which had passed long ago from the earth. He 
called to mind many a pleasant fireside chat; many a 
funeral scene, and burying in sun-light and in the cold rain : 
the young Elbridge too was in his thoughts last of all ; 
could he return to them with a name untainted, the old 
man would cheerfully lie down in his grave and be at peace 
with all the world. 

In the mean while, within the house the Captain, in high 
favor, was seated in a great cushioned armchair with little 
Sam Peabody on his knee, and the women of the house 
gathered about him, looking on as he narrated the courses 
and adventures of his last voyage. The widow listened 


28 


CHANTICLEER. 


with a sad interest. Mopsey rolled her eyes, and was mirth- 
ful in the most serious and stormiest passages ; while little 
Sam and the Captain’s wife rivalled each other in regarding 
the Captain with innocent wonder and astonishment, as 
though he were the most extraordinary man that ever sailed 
the sea, or sat in a chair telling about it, in the whole 
habitable globe. Miriam Haven alone was distant from 
the scene, gliding to. and fro past the door, busied in house- 
hold duties in a neighboring apartment, and catching a 
word here and there as she glanced by. 

It was a wonderful story, certainly, the Captain was tell- 
ing, and it seemed beyond all belief that it could be true 
that one man could have seen the whales, the icebergs, the 
floating islands, the ships in the air, the sea-dogs, and 
grampuses, the flying-flsh, the pirates, and the thousand 
other wonders the Captain reported to have crossed his path 
in a single trip across the Atlantic and back. He also 
averred to have distinctly seen the sea-serpent ; and what 
was more, to have had a conversation with a ship in the 
very middle of the ocean. Was there any thing wonderful 
in that ? it occurs every day — but listen to the jovial Cap- 
tain ! — a ship — and he had news to tell them of one they 
would like to hear about. They pressed close to the Cap- 
tain and listened breathlessly ; Miriam Haven pausing in 
her task, and stopping stone-still like a statue, in the door, 
while her very heart stayed its beating. 

Go on, Captain — go on — go on! 


ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT. 


29 


“Well, what do you think; we were in latitude — no 
matter, you don’t care about that — we had just come out of 
a great gale, which made the sea pitch-dark about us; 
when the first beam of the sun opened the clouds, we found 
ourselves alongside a ship with the old stars and stripes 
flying like a bird at the mast-head. There was a sight, my 
hearties. We hailed her, she hailed us — we threw her 
papers, she threw us, and we parted forever.” 

“ Is that all ?” 

A 

“ Not half. One of these was a list of passengers; "I run 
my eye up, and I run my eye down, and there, shining out 
like a star amongst them all, I find — whose d’ye think ? — 
Elbridge Peabody, as large as life.” 

Miriam Haven staggered against the door-post, the widow 
fell upon her knees, “ Thank God, my boy is heard from.” 

Little Sam Peabody darted from the Captain’s knee and 
rushed upon the balcony, crying at the top of his lungs, 
“ Grandfather, brother Elbridge is heard from.” 

“ I don’t believe it,” said William Peabody ; the poor old 
blind sorrel had disappeared from sight into a piece of woods 
near the orchard, and the merchant had quite recovered his 
usual way of speaking. “Never will believe it. You haven’t 
heard of that youngster, — never will. Always knew he 
would run away some day — never come back again.” 

The Captain’s story was rapidly explained by the difierent 
members of the family, who had followed little Sam, to re- 
peat it to old Sylvester, each in her own way. Miriam and 


30 


CHANTICLEER. 


Hannah Peabody, who at sound of the commotion had come 
forth from an inner chamber, whither she had been retired 
by herself, joined the company of lookers on 

“ What all amount to,” he continued, in his peculiar clip- 
ped style of speech. “Expect to see him again, do you? 
Mighty fine chance — where going to ?” 

The Captain couldn’t tell. 

“ One of the Captain’s fine stories — no — no — ^if that boy 
ever comes back again. I’ll — ” 

There was a deep silence to hear what the hard old mer- 
chant proposed. 

“I’ll hand over to him the management of his late father’s 
property, he was always hankering after, and thought he 
could make so much more of than his hard-fisted old 
uncle.” 

This was a comfortable proposition, and little Sam Pea- 
body, as though it were a great pear or red pippin that was 
spoken of, running to his mother, said — 

“ Mother, I’d take it.” 

“ I do,” said the widow, “ and call you all to witness.” 

William Peabody smiled grimly on Margaret; his counte- 
nance darkened suddenly, and he was, no doubt, on the 
point of retracting his confident offer, when his wife uttered 
in an under-tone, half entreaty, half authority, “ William !” 
at the same time turning on her husband the side of the 
countenance which wore the green shade. He stifled what 
he intended to utter, and shifting uneasily in his seat, he 


AREIVAL OF THE MERCHANT. 


31 


looked towards the city and was silent. Whatever the rea- 
son, it was clear that when they were seated at the table, 
partaking of the meal, it was Captain Saltonstall that had 
the best attention from every member of the household (and 
the best of the dish), from all save old Sylvester, who held 
himself erect, as usual, and impartial in the matter. 

“ The ways of Providence are strange,” said old Sylvester. 
“ Out of darkness he brings marvellous light, and from the 
frivolous acorn he spreads the branches wide in the air, which 
are a shelter, and a solace, and a shadowy play-ground to our 
youth and old age. We must wait the issue, and whatever 
comes, to Him must we give thanks.” 

With this sentiment for a benediction, the patriarch dis- 
missed his family to their slumbers, which to each one of 
the household brought its peculiar train of speculation ; to 
two, at least, Miriam and the widow Margaret, they brought 
dreams which only the strong light of day could disprove to 
be realities. 


CHAPTER THIRD. 


THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST. 

With the following day (which was calm, gentle, and 
serene as its predecessor), a little after the dispatch of dinner, 
the attention of the household was summoned to the clatter 
of a hurrying wagon, which, unseen, resounded in the dis- 
tant country. Old Sylvester was the first to hear it — faintly 
at first, then it rose on the wind far off, died away in the 
woods and the windings of the roads, then again was entirely 
lost for several minutes, and at last growing into a porten- 
tous rattle, brought to at the door of the homestead, and 
landed from its rickety and bespattered bosom Mr. Oliver 
Peabody, of Ohio ; Jane his wife, a buxom lady of fair com- 
plexion, in a Quaker bonnet ; and Robert, their eldest son, a 
tall, flat-featured boy, some thirteen years of age. 


THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST. 33 

The countryman in a working shirt, who had the control 
of the wagon, and who had been beguiled by Oliver some 
five miles out of his road home (to which he was returning 
from the market town), under pretence of a wish to have 
his opinion of the crops — the poor fellow being withal a 
hired laborer and never having owned, or entertained the 
remotest speculation of owning, a rood of ground of his 
own, — with a commendation from Oliver, delivered with a 
cheerful smile, that “ his observations on timothy were very 
much to the purpose,” drove clattering away again. Mr. 
Oliver Peabody, farmer, who had come all the way from 
Ohio to spend thanksgiving with his old father — of a ruddy, 
youthful, and twinkling countenance — who wore his hair at 
length and unshorn, and the chief peculiarity of whose dress 
was a gray cloth coat, with a row of great horn-buttons on 
either breast, with enormous woollen mittens, brought his 
buxom wife forward under one arm with diligence, drawing 
his tall youth of a son after him by the other hand — threw 
himself into the bosom of the Peabody family, and was 
heartily welcomed all round. He didn’t say a word of half- 
horses and half-alligators, nor of greased lightning, although 
he was from the West, but he did complain most bitterly of 
the uncommon smoothness of the roads in these parts, the 
short grass, and the ’bominable want of elbow-room all over 
the neighborhood. It was with difficulty he could be kept 
on the straitened stage of the balcony long enough to an- 
swer a few plain questions of children and other matters at 
3 


34 


CHANTICLEER. 


home ; and immediately expressed an ardent desire to take 
a look at the garden. 

“We got somefin’ to show thar, Mas’r Oliver,” said Mop- 
sey, who had stood by listening, with open mouth and eyes, 
to the strong statements of the western farmer; “ we haint to 
be beat right away no how !” 

Old Sylvester rose with his staff, which he carried more 
for pleasure than necessity, and led the way. As they 
approached there was visible through all the plants, shrubs, 
and other growths of the place— whatever they might be — a 
great yellow sphere or ball, so disposed, on a little slope by 
itself, as to catch the eye from a distance, shining out in its 
golden hue from the garden, a sort of rival to the sun him- 
self, rolling overhead. 

“ Dere, what d’ye tink of dat, Oliver,” Mopsey asked, for- 
getting -in the grandeur of the moment all distinctions of 
class or color ; “ I guess dat’s somefin.” 

“ That’s a pumpkin,” said Mr. Oliver Peabody, calmly. 

“Yes, I guess it is — de tanksgivin punkin T 

She looked into the Western farmer’s face, no doubt 
expecting a spasm or convulsion, but it was calm — calm 
as night. Mopsey condescended not another word, but 
walking or rather shuffling disdainfully away, muttered to 
herself, “Dat is de very meanest man, for a white man, 
I ever did see ; he looked at dat ’ere punkin which has cost 
me so many anxious days and sleepless nights — which 
I have watched over as though it had been my own child — 


THE FAEMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST. 35 

which I planted wid dis here hand of my own, and fought 
for agin the June-bugs and the white frost, and dat mouse 
dat’s been tryin to eat it up for dis tree weeks and better — 
just as if it had been a small green cowcumber. I don’t be- 
lieve dat Oliver Peabody knows it is tanksgivin.’ He’s a 
great big fool.” 

“ I see you still keep some of the old red breed, father,” 
said Oliver, when they were left alone in the quiet of the 
garden, pointing to the red rooster, who stood on the 
wall in the sun. 

“ Yes,” old Sylvester answered, “for old times’ sake. We 
have had them with us now on the farm for better than 
a hundred years. I remember the day the great grand- 
father of this bird was brought among us. It was the 
day we got news that good David Brainard, the Indian 
missionary, died— that was some while before the revolu- 
tionary war. He died in the aims of the great Jonathan 
Edwards, at Northampton ; their souls are at peace.” 

“ I recollect this fellow,” Oliver continued, referring to the 
red rooster : “ when I was here last, he was called Elbridge’s 
bird, that was the year before last.” 

“ There is no Elbridge now,” said the old grandfather. 

“ I know all, ’’said Oliver ; “ I had a letter from Margaret, 
telling me the story and begging me to keep a watch 
for her boy.” 

“ A wide watch to keep and little to be got by it, I fear,” 
old Sylvester added. 


36 


CHANTICLEER. 


“Not altogether idle, perhaps; we have sharp eyes in the 
West, and see many strange things. Jane is confident 
she saw our Elbridge making through Ohio, but two months 
after he left here ; he was riding swiftly, and in her surprise 
and suddenness she could neither call nor send after him.” 

“You did not tell us of that,” said the old man. 

“No, I waited some further discovery.” 

“Be silent now, you may easily waken hopes to be 
darkened and dashed to the ground. Which way made the 
boy?” 

“ Southward.” 

During this discourse, as though he distinguished the 
sound of his young master’s name and knew to what it 
related. Chanticleer walked slowly, and as if by accident or 
at leisure, up and down the garden- wall, keeping as near to 
the speakers as was at all seemly. When they stopped 
speaking he leaped gently to the ground and softly clapped 
his wings. 

A moment after there came hurrying into the garden, in 
a wild excitement, and all struggling to speak first, little 
Sam Peabody in the lead, Robert, the flat-featured youth oi 
thirteen, and Peabody Junior (who, it should be mentioned, 
having found his way into a pantry a couple of minutes after 
his arrival with the Captain, and appropriated to his own 
personal use an entire bottle of cherry brandy, had been 
straightway put to bed, from which he had now been re- 
leased not more than a couple of hours), and to announce 


THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST. 37 

as clamorousl}^ as they respectively could, that Brund age’s 
bull had just got into “ our big meadow.” 

“ Nobody hurt ?” asked old Sylvester. 

“ Nobody hurt, gTandfather, but he’s ploughing up the 
I meadow at a dreadful rate,” said little Sam Peabody. 

“ Like wild,” Peabody Junior added. 

I This statement, strongly as it was made, seemed to have 
! no particular effect on old Sylvester. Oliver Peabody, on 
: the other hand, was exceedingly indignant, and was for pro- 
ceeding to extremities immediately, the expulsion of the 
Brundage bull, and the demanding of damages for allowing 
his cattle to cross the boundary line of the two farms. 

Old Sylvester listened to his violence with a blank counte- 
nance; nor did he seem to comprehend that any special 
outrage had been committed, for it must be acknowledged 
that the only indication that the grandfather had come to 
his second childhood was, that, with his advancing years, 
and as he approached the shadow of the other world, he 
seemed to have lost all idea of the customary distinctions of 
rank and property, and that, very much like an old apostle, 
he was disposed to regard all men as brethren, and boundary 
lines as of very little consequence. 

He therefore promptly checked his son Oliver in his 
heat, and discountenanced any further proceedings in the 
matter. 

“ Brundage,” he said, “ would, if he cared about him, 
come and take his bull away when he was ready ; we 


38 


CHANTiCLKKR. 


are all brethren, and have a coimnon country, Olirtr,” he 
added : “ I hope you feel that in the West, as well as we do 
here.” 

“ Thank God, we have,” Oliver rejoined with emphasis, 
“ and we love it !” 

“ I thank God for that too,” old Sylvester replied, strik- 
ing his staff firmly on the ground. “ I remember well, my 
son, when your great State was a wilderness of woods 
and savage men, and now this common sky — look at it, 
Oliver — which shines so clearly above us, is yours as well as 
ours.” 

“ I fear me, father, one day, bright, beautiful, and wide- 
arched as it is, the glorious Union may fall,” said Oliver, 
aying his hand upon an aged tree which stood near them — 
‘ may fall, and the States drop, one by one away, even as 
.he fruit I shake to the ground.” 

As though he had been a tower standing on an elevation, 
old Sylvester Peabody rose aloft to his full height, as if he 
would clearly contemplate the far past, the distant, and the 
broad-coming future. 

“The Union fall!” he cried. “Look above, my son 1 
The Union fall ! as long as the constellations of evening live 
together in yonder sky ; look down, as long as the great 
rivers of our land flow eastward and westward, north and 
south, the Uuion shall stand up, and stand majestical and 
bright, beheld by ages, as these shall be, an orb and living 
sti cam of glory unsurpassable.” 


THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST. 39 

The children were gathered about, and watched with eager 
eyes and glowing cheeks the countenance of the grandfather 
as he spoke. 

“No, no, my son,” he added, “there’s many a true heart 
in brave Ohio, as in every State of ours, or they could not 
be the noble powers they are.” 

While old Sylvester spoke, Oliver Peabody wrenched with 
some violence, from the tree near which they stood, a stout 
limb, on the end of which he employed himself with a knife 
in shaping a substantial knob. 

“ What weapon is that you are busy with, Oliver ?” old 
Sylvester asked. 

“ It’s for that nasty bull,” Oliver replied. “ I would break 
every bone in his body rather (han let him remain for a 
single minute on my land ; the furtherance of law and oi dei 
demands the instant enforcement of one’s rights.” 

“You are a friend of law and order, my son.” 

“I think I am,” Oliver answered, standing erect ano 
planting his club, in the manner of Hercules in the pictures, 
head down on the ground. 

“ I hope you are, Olivei’, but 1 fear you forget the story I 
used to tell of my old friend Bulkley, of Danbury, who, be- 
ing written to by some neighboring Christians who were in 
sore dissension, for advisement, gave them back word : — 
Eveiy man to look after his own fence, that it be built 
high and strong, and to have a special care of .the old Black 
Bull : meaning thereby, no doubt, our own wicked passions; 


40 


chanticlp:er. 


— that is the true Christiau way of securing peace and good 
order.” 

Oliver threw his great trespass-club upon the ground, 
and was on the point of asking after au old sycamore, 
the largest growth of all that country — which, standing in a 
remote field, had, in the perilous times, sheltered many of 
the Peabody family in its bosom — when he was interrupted 
by the sudden appearance of Mopsey in a flutter of cap- 
strings, shuffling shoes, and a flying color in her looks of at 
least double the usual depth of darkness. It was just dis- 
covered that the poultry-house had been broken into over- 
^ night, and four of the fattest hens taken off by the throat 
and legs, besides sundry of the inferior members of the 
domicile ; as wicked a theft, Mopsey said, as ever was, and 
she hadn’t the slightest hesitation in charging it on them 
niggers in the Hills (a neighboring settlement of colored 
people, Avho lived from hand to mouth, and seemed to be 
fed, like the ravens, by some mystery of Providence). 

Oliver Peabody watched closely the countenance of the 
patriarch, not a little curious to learn what effect this an- 
nouncement would have upon his temper. 

“This is all our own fault,” said old Sylvester, promptly. 
“ We should have remembered this was thanksgiving time, 
and sent them something to stay their stomachs. Poor 
creatures, I always wondered how they got along ! Send 
’em some bread, Mopsey, for they never can do any thing 
with fowls without bread !” 


THK FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST. 41 

“ Send ’em some bread !” Mopsey rejoined, growing 
blacker and more ugly of look as she spoke : “ Send ’em 
whips, and an osifer of the law ! — The four fattest of the 
coop !” 

“ Never mind,” said old Sylvester. 

“ Six of the tend’rest young’uns !” 

“ Never mind that,” said old Sylvester. 

“ I’d have them all in the county jail before sundown,” 
urged Mopsey. 

“Oliver, we will go in to tea,” continued the patriarch. 
“We have enough for tea, Mopsey ?” 

“ Yes, quite enough, Mas’r.” 

“ Then,” cried the old man, striking his staff on the 
ground with great violence, rising to his full height, and 
glowing like a furnace upon Mopsey, “ then, I say, send ’em 
some bread !” 

This speed), delivered in a voice of authority, sent Mop- 
sey, shuffling and cowering, away, without a word, and 
brought the sweat of horror to the brow of Oliver, which he 
proceeded to remove with a great cotton pocket-handker- 
chief, produced from his coat behind, on which was dis- 
played in glowing colors, by some cunning artist, the impos- 
ing scene of the signers of the Declaration of Independence 
getting ready to affix their names Mr. Oliver Peabody 
was the politician of the family, and always had the immor- 
tal Declaration of Independence at his tongue's end, or in 
hand. 


CHAPTER FOURTH. 


THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED. 

When Oliver and old Sylvester entered the house they, 
found all of the family gathered within, save the children, 
who loitered about the doors and windows, looking in, anx- 
ious-eyed, on the preparations for tea going forward under 
the direction of the widow Margaret and Mopsey. The other 
women of the household were busy with a discussion of the 
merits of Mrs. Carrack, of Boston, the fashionable lady of 
the family. 

“ I should like to see Mrs. Carrack above all things,” said 
the Captain’s pretty little wife ; “she must be a fine woman, 
from all I have heard of her.” 

“ Thee will have small chance, I fear, child,” said Mrs. 
Jane Peabody, sitting buxomly in an easy armchair, which 


THE FORITINES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED. 43 

she had quietly assumed ; “she is too fine for the company 
of us plain folks, in every point of view.” 

“ It’s five years since she wjis here,” the widow suggested, 
as she adjusted the chairs around the table : “ she said 
she never would come inside the house again, because the 
best bedchamber was not given to her — I am sorry to 
say it.” 

“ She’s a heathen and wicked woman,” Mopsey said, 
shufliing at the door, and turning back on her way to the 
kitchen — “ your poor boy was lying low of a fever, and how 
could she expect it.” 

“ In one point of view, she may come. Her husband was 
living then,” continued Mrs. Jane Peabody : “ she has be- 
come a rich w’oman since, and may honor us with a visit — 
to show us how great a person she has got to be. Let her 
come — it needn’t trouble thee, nor me, I’m sure.” Mrs. Jane 
Peabody smoothed her Quaker Vandyke, and sat stiffly in 
her easy-chair. 

Old Sylvester entering at that moment, laid aside his 
staff and broad-brimmed hat, which little Sam Peabody 
ran in to take charge of, and took his seat at the head 
of the table ; the Captain, who was busy at the back-door 
scouring an old rusty fowling-piece for some enterprise 
he had in view in the morning, was called in by his 
little wife ; the others were seated in their places about the 
board. 

“ Where’s William ?” old Sylvester asked. 


44 - 


CHANTICLEER. 


lie was at a window in the front room, where he had sat 
for several hours, with spectacles on his brow, poring over 
an old faded parchment deed, which related to some neigh- 
boring land he thought belonged to the Peabodys (although 
in possession of others), and which he had always made a 
close study of on his visits to the homestead. There was 
a dark passage, under which he made their title, which had 
been submitted to various men learned in the law : it was 
too dark and doubtful, in their opinion, to build a contest 
on, and yet William Peabody gave it every year a new ex- 
amination, with the hope, perhaps, that the wisdom of ad- 
vancing age might enable him to fathom and expound it, al- 
though it had been drawn up by the greatest lawyer of his 
day in all that country. Ilis wife Hannah, grieving in spirit 
that her husband should be toiling forever in the quest of 
gain, sat near him, pale, calm, and disheartened, but speak- 
ing not a word. He could not look at her with that fearfu’ 
green shade on her face, but kept his eyes always fixed on 
the old parchment. When his aged father had taken his 
seat, and began his thanks to God for the bounties before 
them, as though the old Patriarch had brought a better 
spirit from the calm day without, he thrust the ])aper into 
his bosom and glided to his place at the table. It would 
have done you good to hear that old man’s prayer. He 
neither solicited forgiveness for his enemies nor favors for 
his friends ; for schools, churches, presidents, or govern- 
ments; neither for health, wealth, worldly welfare, nor for 


THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY OONSIDERED. 


45 


any single other thing ; all he said, bowing his white old 
head, w'as this — 

“ May we all be Christian people the day w'e die — God 
bless ns.” 

That was all; and his kinsfolk lost no appetite in listening 
to it, for it was no sooner uttered, than they all fell to ; and 
not a word more was spoken for five minutes at least, nor 
then, perhaps, had not little Sam Peabody cried out, with 
breathless animation, and delight of feature— 

‘‘ The pigeons, grandfother !” at the same time pointing 
from the door to the evening sky, along which they were 
winging their calm and silent flight in a countless train — 
streaming on westward as though there was no end to them ; 
which put old Sylvester upon recalling the cheerful sports 
of his younger days. 

“ I have taken a couple of hundred in a net on the Hill 
before breakfast, many a time,” he said. “ You used to help 
me, William.” 

“ Yes, I and old Ethan Barbary,” said the merchant, “ used 
to spring the net ; you gave the word.” 

“ Old Ethan has been dead many a day. Ethan,” con- 
tinued old Sylvester, in explanation, “was the father of our 
Mr. Barbary. He was a preacher too, and carried a gun in 
the Revolution. I remember he w’as accounted a peculiar 
man. I never knew wdiy. To be sure he used to spend the 
time he did not employ in prayers, preaching and tending 
the sick, in working on the fiirins about, for he had no wages 


46 


CHANTICLEER. 


for preacliing. When there was none of that to be had, lie 
took his basket, and sallying through the fields, gathered 
berries, which he bestowed on the needy families of the 
neighborhood. In winter he collected branches in the 
woods about, as firewood for the poor.” 

“ That was a capital idea,” said Oliver the politician. “ It 
must have made him very popular.” 

“Wasn’t he always thought to be a little out of his 
head ?” asked the merchant. “ He might have sold the 
wood for a good price in the severe winters.” 

“ I remember as if it were yesterday,” old Sylvester went 
on in his own way, not heeding in the slightest the sugges- 
tions of his sons, “ he and black Burling, who is buried in 
the woods by the Great Walnut-tree, near the pond, both 
fought in the American ranks, and had but one gun be- 
tween them, which they used turn about.” 

“You saw rough times in those days, grandfather,” said 
the Captain. 

“I did, Charley,” old Sylvester answered, looking kindly 
on the Captain, who had always been something of a favor- 
ite of his from the day he had married into the family ; 
“ and there are but few left to talk with me of them now. I 
am one of the living survivors of an almost extinguished 
race. The grave will soon be our only habitation. I am 
one of the few stalks that still remain in the field where the 
tempest passed. I have fought against the foreign foe for 
your sake ; they have disappeared from the land, and you 


THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED. 47 

are free ; the strength of my ann delays, and my feet fail 
me in the way ; the hand which fought for your liberties is 
now open to bless you. In my youth I bled in battle that 
you might be independent — let not my heart, in my old age, 
bleed because you abandon the path I would have you fol- 
low.” 

The old patriarch leaned his head upon his hand, and the 
company was silent as though they had listened to a voice 
from the grave. He presently looked up and smiled — “ Old 
Ethan, I call to mind now,” he renewed, “ had a quality 
whicli our poor Barbary inherited ; and for which,” he added, 
looking towards his son William, “ and for which I greatly 
honor his memory. He counted the money of this world 
but as dross. From his manhood to the very moment of 
his entering on tire ministry, he never would touch silver 
nor gold, — partly, I think, because it was the true Scripture 
course, and partly because a dreadful murder had once hap- 
pened in the Barbary family, growing out of a quarrel for 
the possession of a paltry sum of money.” 

The bread she was raising to her lips fell from the 
widow’s hand, for she could not help but think of the 
history of her absent son ; and the voice of Miriam, who did 
not present herself at the table, was heard from a distant 
chamber, not distinctly, but in that tone of chanting lament 
which had become habitual to her whether in house, garden, 
or field. It was an inexpressibly mournful cadence, and for 
the tim.e stilled all other sounds. They were only draw^ 


48 


CHANTICLEER. 


away from it by descrying Mopsey, the black servant, at a 
turn of the road, hurrying with great animation towards the 
homestead, but with a singularity in her progress which 
could not fail to be observed. She rushed along at great 
speed, for several paces, and suddenly came to a halt, 
during which her head disappeared, and then renewed her 
pace, repeating the peculiar manoeuvre once at least in 
every ten yards.*- In a word,, she was shuffling on in her 
loose shoes (which were on or off, one or the other of them 
every other minute), at as rapid a rate as that peculiar spe- 
cies of locomotion allowed. Bursting with impatience and 
the importance of her commnnication, her cap flaunting 
from her head, she stood in the doorway and announced, 
“ We’ve beat Brundage — we’ve beat Brundage 1” 

“ What’s this, Mopsey ?” old Sylvester inquired. 

“ I’ve tried it, and I’ve spanned it. I can’t span 
ours !” 

On further questioning, it appeared that Mopsey had been 
on a pilgrimage to the next neighbor’s, the Brundages, to 
inspect their thanksgiving pumpkin, and institute a com- 
parison with the Peabody growth of that kind, with a 
highly satisfactory and complacent result as regarded the 
home production. Nobody was otheiwise than pleased 
at Mopsey’s innocent rejoicing, and Avhen she had been 
duly complimented on her success, she Avent aAvay Avith 
a broad black guffaw to set a trap in the garden for the 
broAvn mouse, the sole surviving enemy of the great Pea- 


THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED. 49 

4 

body thanksgiving pumpkin which must be plucked next 
day for use. 

With the dispatch of the evening meal, old Sylvester * 
withdrew to the other room, with a little hand-lamp, to 
read a chapter by himself; the others remaining seated 
about the apartment. The Captain and Oliver presently fell 
into a violent discussion on the true sources of national 
wealth, the Captain giving it as his opinion* ^jpi.at it solely 
depended on having a great number of ships at sea, as car- 
riers between different countries. Oliver was equally clear 
and resolute that the real wealth of a nation lay in its wheat 
crops. WTen wheat was at ten shillings the bushel, all 
went well ; let it fall a quarter, and you had general bank 
ruptcy staring you in the face. Mr. William Peabody 
wasn’t at the pains to deliver his opinion, but he was sat- 
isfied, in his secret soul, that it lay in the increase of new 
houses, or the proper supply of calicoes — he hadn’t made 
up his mind which. Presently Oliver was troubled again in 
reference to the supply of gold in the world — whether there 
was enough to do business with : he also had some things 
to say (which he had out of a great speech in Congress) 
about bullion and rates of exchange, but nobody understood 
him. 

“ By the way,” he added, “ Mrs. Carrack’s son Tiflfany is 
gone to the Gold Region. From what he writes to me, I 
think he’ll cut a very great figure in that country.” 

“ An exceedingly fine, talented young man,” said the 
4 


50 


CHANTICLEER. 


merchant, who had then sundry sums on loan from his 
mother. 

“ In any point of view, in w hich you regard it,” continued 
Oliver, “ the gold country is an important acquisition.” 

“You haven’t the letter Tiffany wrote, wuth you?” inter- 
rupted the Captain. 

“ I think I have,” was the answer. “ I brought it, sup- 
posing you might like to look at it. Shall I read it ?” 

There was no objection : the letter was read — in which 
Mr. Tiffany Carrack professed his w^earincss of civilized life — 
spoke keenly of misspent hours — a determination to rally 
and do something important, intimating that that was a great 
country for enterprising young men, and, in a familiar phrase, 
closed wuth a settled resolution to do or die. 

“ I have a letter to the same effect,” said the Captain. 

“And so have I,” said 'William Peabody, “word for 
word.” 

“ He means to do something very grand,” said the Cap- 
tain. Something very grand — the women all agreed — for 
Mr. Tiffany Carrack was a nice young man, and had a pros- 
pect of inheriting a hundred thousand dollars, to say noth- 
ing of the large sums he was to bring from the Gold Re- 
gions. It was evident to all that he w^as going into the 
business w’ith a rush. They, of course, w^ouldn’t see Mr 
Tiffany Carrack at this Thanksgiving gathering — he had 
better business on hand — Mr. Tiffany Carrack was clearly 
the promising young man of the family, and was carrying 


THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSBDEEED., 51 

the fortunes of the Peabodies into the remotest quarters of 
the land. 

“ In a word,” said Mr. Oliver Peabody, developing the 
Declaration of Independence on his pocket-handkerchief, 
“ he is going to do wonders in every point of view. He’ll 
carry the principles of Free Government everywhere !” 

The consideration of the extraordinary talents and enter- 
prise of the son imparted a new interest to the question of 
the coming of Mrs. Carrack, which was discussed in all 
its bearings; and it was almost unanimously concluded, 
that, one day now only intervening to Thanksgiving, it was 
too late to look for her. There had been a general disposi- 
tion, secretly opposed only by Mrs. Jane Peabody, to yield 
to that fashionable person the best bedchamber, which was 
always accounted a great prize and distinguished honor 
among the family. But now there was scarcely any need 
of reserving it longer — and who was to have it ? Alas ! that 
is a question often raised in rural households, often shakes 
them to the very base, and spreads through whole families 
a bitterness and strength and length of strife, which fre- 
quently ends only with life itself. 

To bring the matter to an issue, various whispered con- 
versations were held in the small room, lying next to the 
sitting-room, at first between Mrs. Margaret Peabody and 
Mopsey, to which one by one were summoned, Mrs. Jane 
Peabody, the Captain’s wife, and Mrs. Hannah Peabody. 
The more it was discussed the farther off seemed any reason- 


52 


CHANTICLEER. 


able conclusion. When one arrangement was proposed, 
various faces of the group grew dark and sour ; when an- 
other, other faces blackened and elongated ; tongues, too, 
wagged faster every minute, and at length grew to such a 
hubbub as to call old Sylvester away from his Bible, and 
bring him to the door to learn what turmoil it was that at 
this quiet hour disturbed the peace of the Peabodys. He 
was not long in discovering the ground of battle, and even 
as in old pictures Adam is shown walking calmly in Eden 
among the raging beasts of all degrees and kinds, the old 
patriarch came forward among the women of the Peabody 
family — “ My children,” he said, “ should dwell in peace for 
the short stay allotted them on earth. Why make a differ- 
ence about so small a matter as a lodging-place — they are 
all good and healthful rooms. I have seen the day when 
camping on the wet grounds and morasses I would have 
held any one of them to be a palace- chamber. The back 
chamber, my child,” he continued, addressing the Captain’s 
wife, “ looks out on the orchard, where you always love to 
walk ; the white room, Hannah, towards your father’s 
house ; and, Jane, you cannot object' to the front chamber, 
which is large, well-furnished, and has the best of the sun- 
rise. The Son of Man, my children, had not where to lay 
his head, and shall we who are but snails and worms, com- 
pared with his glory and goodness, presume to exalt our- 
selves, where he was abased.” 

The old patriarch wished them a good-night, and with 


THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED. 53 

ihe departure of his white locks gleaming as he walked 
away, as though it had been the gentle radiance of the 
moon stilling the tumult of the waters, they each quietly 
retired, and without a farther murmur, to the chambers 
assigned them. 


CHAPTER FIFTH. 


THE CHILDREN. 

There was no question where the children were to lodge, 
for there had been allotted to them from time immemorial, 
over since children were known in the Peabody family, a 
great rambling upper chamber, with beds in the corners, 
where they were always bestowed as soon after dark as they 
could be convoyed thither under direction of Mopsey and 
the mistress of the household. This was not always — in 
truth, it was rarely — easy of achievement, and cost the 
shuffling black servant at least half an hour of diligent 
search and struggling persuasion to bring them in from the 
various strayings, escapes, and lurking-places, where they 
shirked to gain an extra half-hour of freedom. 


THE CHILDREN. 


55 


To the children, however darker humors might work and 
sadden among the grown people (for whatever hue rose- 
favored writers may choose to throw over scenes and times 
of festivity, the passions of character are always busy, in 
holiday and hall, as well as in the strifes of the world), to 
the Peabody children this was thanksgiving time indeed — 
it was thanksgiving in the house, it was thanksgiving in the 
orchard, climbing trees ; it was thanksgiving in the barn, 
tumbling in the hay, in the lane. It was thanksgiving, too, 
with the jovial Captain, a grown-up boy, — heading their 
sports, and allowing the country, as he did, little rest or peace 
of mind wherever he led the revel : it was not four-and- 
twenty hours that he had been at the quiet homestead be- 
fore the mill was set a-running, the chestnut-trees shaken, 
the pigeons fired into, a new bell of greater compass put 
upon the brindle cow, the blacksmith’s anvil at the corner 
of the road set a-dinging, fresh weather-cocks clapped upon 
the barn, corn-crib, stable, and outhouse, the sheep let out 
of the little barn, all the boats of the neighborhood launched 
upon the pond. With night, darkness closed upon wild 
frolic : bedtime came, and thanksgiving had a pause ; a 
pause only, for Mopsey’s dark head, with its broad-bordered 
white cap, was no sooner withdrawn and the door firmly 
shut, than thanksgiving began afresh, as though there had 
been no such thing all day long, and they were now just 
setting out. For half a minute after Mopsey’s disappear- 
ance they were all nicely tucked in as she had left them — 


56 


CHANTICLEER. 


straight out — with their heads each square on its pillow ; 
then, as if by a silent understanding, all heads popped up 
like so many frisking fish. They darted from bed, and com- 
menced, in the middle of the chamber, a great pillow-fight, 
amicable and hurtless, but furiously waged, till the approach 
of a broad footstep sent them scampering back to their 
couches, mum as mice. Mopsey, well aware of these frisks, 
tarried till they were blown over, in her own chamber hard 
by, — a dark room, mysterious to the fancy of the children, 
with spinning-wheels, dried gourd-shells hung against the 
wall, a lady’s riding-saddle, no*vv out of use this many a day, 
and all the odds and ends of an ancient farm-house stored 
in heaps and strings about. 

It was only at last by going aloft and moving a trap in 
the ceiling, which was connected in tradition with the ap- 
pearance of a ghost, that they were at length fairly sobered 
down and kept in bed, when Mopsey, looking in for the last 
time, knew that it was safe to go below. They had some- 
thing left even then, and kept up a talk from bed to bed, for 
a good long hour more, at least. 

“ What do you think of the turkey. Bill ?” began Master 
Robert Peabody, the flat-featured, rising from his pillow like 
a homely porpoise. 

“I don’t know,” Peabody Junior answered ; “ I don’t care 
for turkeys.” 

Little Sam Peabody, the master of the turkey, took this 
very much to heart. 


THE CHILDREN. 57 

“ I think he’s a very fine one,” continued Master Robert, 
“ twice as big as last year’s.” 

“ I’m very glad to hear you say that, cousin Robert,” said 
little Sam Peabody, turning over towards the quarter whence 
the voice of encouragement came. 

“ As fine a turkey as I’ve ever seen,” Robert went on. 
“ When do they kill him ?” 

Little Sam struggled a little with himself, and answered 
feebly, “ To-morrow.” 

There was silence for several minutes, broken presently 
by Peabody Junior, fixing his pillow, and saying, “Boys, 
I’m going to sleep.” 

Allowing some few minutes for this to take effect. Master 
Robert called across the chamber to little Sam, “ I wonder 
why Aunt Hannah wears that old green shade on her 
face?” 

“ Pray don’t say any thing about that,” little Sam an- 
swered, “ Cousin don’t like to hear about that !” 

Master Robert — rather a blunt young gentleman — is not 
to be baffled so easily. 

“ I say. Bill, why does your mother wear that green patch 
over her eye ?” he called out. 

There was no answer. He called again in a louder 
key. 

“Hush!” whispered Peabody Junior, who was not asleep, 
but only thinking of it, in a tone of fear, “I don’t 
know.” 


58 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ Is the eye gone ?” Robert asked again, bent on satisfac- 
tion of some kind. 

“ I don’t know,” w^as the whispered answer again. “ Don’t 
ask me any thing about it.” 

“ I’m afraid Aunt Hannah’s not happy,” suggested little 
Sam, timidly. 

“Pr’aps she isn’t, Sam,” Peabody Junior answered. 

“ What is the reason ?” continued little Sam : “ I alw^ays 
liked her.” 

“Don’t know,” was all Peabody Junior had to reply. 

“ Did you ever see that other eye. Bill ?” asked the blunt 
young gentleman, whose head was still running on the 
green shade. 

“Oh, go to sleep, will you. Nosey !” cried Peabody Junior. 
“ If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll get up and w^allop you.” 

The flat-featured disappeared with his porpoise face under 
the bedclothes and breathed hard, but kept close; and 
when he fell asleep he dreamed of dragons and green um- 
brellas all night, at a fearful rate. 

“I wouldn’t be angry. Cousin,” said little Sam, when 
the porpoise gave token that he was hard-bound in slum- 
ber. “ Ha don’t mean to hurt your feelings, I don’t be- 
lieve.” 

“Pr’aps he don’t,” Peabody Junior rejoined. “What 
could I tell him, if I w^anted to ? All I know is, mother has 
worn the shade ever since I can recollect any thing. I think, 
sometimes, I can remember she used to have it on so far 


THE CHILDKEN. 


59 


back as when I was at the breast, a very little child, and 
that I used to try and snatch it away — which always made 
her very sad.” ^ 

“ Don’t she ever take it away ?” asked little Sam. 

“ I never saw it off in all m^y life; nor can I tell you whether 
my dear mother has one eye or two. I know she never 
likes to have any one look at it. It makes her melancholy 
at once. Nurse used to tell me there was a mystery 
about it — but she would never tell me any more. It always 
scares father when she turns that side of her face on him, 
that I’ve noticed ; and he always at home sits on the other 
side of the table from it.” 

“ I wouldn’t think any more about it to-night, Cousin, 
said little Sam. “ I know it makes you unhappy from your 
voice. Don’t you miss some one to-night that used to keep 
us awake with telling pleasant stories ?” 

“I do,” answered Peabody Junior. “I’m thinking of 
him now. I wish Cousin Elbridge was back again.” 

“You know why he isn’t?” 

“Father says it’s because he’s a bad young man.” 

“And do you believe it, William ?” 

“ I’m afraid he is — for father always says so.” 

A gentle figure had quietly opened the chamber-door, and 
stood listening with breathless attention to the discourse of 
the two children. 

“ You wait and see,” continued little Sam firmly : “ I’m 
sure he’ll come back — and before long.” 


60 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ What makes you think so ?” William asked. “ I’m 
sure I hope he will.” 

“ Because the red rooster,” answered little Sam, “ crowed 
yesterday morning for the first time since he went away, and 
the red rooster knows more than anybody about this farm, 
except old grandfather.” 

Thinking how that could be, Peabody Junior fell asleep ; 
and little Sam, sure to dream of his absent brother, shortly 
followed after. The gentle figure of Miriam Haven glided 
into the chamber, to the bedside of little Sam, and watching 
his calm, innocent features — which were held to greatly re- 
semble those of the absent Elbridge — with tears in her eyes, 
she breathed a blessing from her very heart on the dear 
child who had faith in the absent one. “ A blessing,” such 
was her humble wish as she returned to her chamber and 
laid her fair head on the pillow, “a blessing on such as be- 
lieve in us when we are in trouble and poverty, out of favor 
with the world, when our good name is doubted, and when 
the current, running sharply against, might overwhelm us, 
were not one or two kind hands put forth to .save us from 
utter ruin and abandonment !” 


CHAPTER SIXTH. 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 

All the next day, being the Wednesday before thanks- 
giving, was alive and busy with the various preparations for 
the great festival, now held to be a sacred holiday through- 
out this wide-spread Union. The lark had no sooner called 
morning in the meadow, than Mopsey, who seemed to regard 
herself as having the entire weight of the occasion on her 
single shoulders, slipped from bed, hurried to the garden, 
and taking a last look at the great pumpkin as it lay in all 
its golden glory, severed the vine at a stroke, and trundled 
it with her own arms (she saw with a smile of pity the poor 
brown mouse skulking off, like a little pirate as he was, 
disappointed of his prize) in at the back-door. The Pea 
bodys were gathering for breakfast, and coining forward, 


62 


CHANTICLEER. 


Stood at either side of the eutrance regarding the pumpkin 
with profound interest. It fairly shook the house as it rolled 
in upon the kitchen floor. 

When little Sam, who had lingered in bed beyond the 
others, with pleasant dreams, came down stairs, he was met 
by young William Peabody. 

“ What do you think, Sam ?” said Peabody Junior, 
smiling. 

“ I suppose Aunt Carrack has come,” Sara answered. 
“ It’s nothing to me if she has.” * 

“ No, that isn’t it — Turkey’s dead !” 

Little Sam dropped a tear, and went away by himself to 
walk in the garden. Little Sam took no breakfast that 
morning. 

Every window in the house was thrown wide open to 
begin with ; every chair walked out of its place ; the new 
broom which Miriam had gathered with a song, was used 
for the first time freely on every floor, in every nook and 
corner ; then the new broom was carried away, and locked 
in a closet, like a conjuror who had wrought his spell and 
need not appear again till some other magic was to be per- 
formed. All the chairs we^e set soberly and steadily against 
the wall, the windows were closed, and a sacred shade 
thrown over the house against the approaching festival. 
The key was turned in the lock of the old parlor, which 
was to have no company (save the tall old clock talking all 
alone in the corner to himself) till to-morrow. 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 


63 


And so the day sailed on, like a dainty boat with silent 
oar on a calm-flowing stream, to evening, when, as though 
it had been a new-born meteor or great will-o’-the-wisp, 
there appeared on the edge of the twilight, along the dis- 
tant horizon, a silvery glitter, which, drawing nearer and 
nearer, presently disclosed a servant in a shining band 
mounted on a great coach, with horses in burnished harness; 
with champing which it seemed must have borne it 

far beyond, it came to in a moment at the very gate of the 
homestead, as at the striking of a clock. A gentleman iu 
bearded lip, in high polish of hat, chains, and boots, emerged 
(the door being opened by a stripling also in a banded hat, 
who leaped from behind), followed by a lady in a gown of 
glossy silk and a yellow feather, waving in the partial dark- 
ness from her hat. Such wonder and astonishment as seized 
on the Peabodys, who looked on it from the balcony, no man 
can describe. 

Angels have descended before now and walked upon the 
earth — giants have been at some time or other seen strutting 
about — ghosts appear occasionally in the neighborhood ol 
old farm-houses ; but neither ghost, giant, nor angel had 
such a welcome of uplifted hands and staring eyes as en- 
countered Mrs. Carrack and her son Tiffany, when they, in 
the body, entered in at the gate of the old Peabody mansion 
at that time. There was but one person iu the company, 
old Sylvester perhaps excepted, who seemed to have his wits 
about him, and that was the red rooster, who, sitting on tho 


CHANTICLEER. 


6i 

wall near the gate when Mr. Tiffany Carrack pushed it open, 
cocked his eye smartly on him, and darted sharply at 
his white hand, with its glittering jewel, as he laid it on 
the gate. 

“ Nancy,” said old Sylvester, addressing her with extended 
grasp, and a pleasant smile of welcome on his brow, “ we had 
given up looking for you.” 

Was there ever such a rash OI^^ '^an! “Nancy!” 
as though she had been a common person he was speak- 
ing to. 

Mrs. Carrack, who was a short woman, stiff and stern, 
tossing her feather, gave the tips of her fingers to the patri- 
arch, and ordering in a huge leathern trunk all over brass nails 
and capital C’s, condescended to enter into the house. In 
spite of all resolutions and persuasions to the contrary, the 
door of the best parlor unlocked before her grandeur of 
demeanor, and she took possession as though she had not 
the slightest connection with the other members of the 
Peabody family, nor the remotest interest in the common 
sitting-room without. Mr. Tiffany Carrack, with patent 
shanks to his boots which sprang him into the air as he 
walked, corsets to brace his body in, new-fangled straps to 
keep him down, a patent collar of a peculiar invention, to 
hold his head aloft, moving as it were under the convoy of 
a company of invisible influences, deriving all his motions 
from the shoe-maker, stay-maker, tailor, and linen-draper, 
who originally wound him up and set him a-going, for 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 65 

whose sole convenience he lives, having withal, by way of 
paint to his ashy countenance, a couple of little conch-shell 
tufts, tawny-yellow (that being the latest to be had at the 
perfumer’s), on his upper lip ; the representative and em- 
bodiment of all the latest new improvements, patents, and 
contrivances in apparel, Mr. Tiffany Carrack followed his 
excellent mother. 

“ Why, Tiffany,” said old Sylvester, who, notwithstanding 
the immensity of these people, calmly ’pursued his old course, 
“ we ail thought you were in California.” 

The family were gathered around and awaited Mr. Tiffany 
Carrack’s answer with a good deal of curiosity. 

“ That was all a delusion, sir,” he replied, plucking at his 
little crop of yellow tufts ; “ a horrible delusion. I had 
some thought of that kind in my mind, in fact I had got as 
far south as New Orleans, when I met a seedy fellow who 
told me that the natives had rebelled and wouldn’t work 
any more ; so I found if I would get any of the precious, 
I must dig with a shovel with my own dear digits ; of course 
I turned back in disgust, and here I am as good as new — 
Jehoshaphat !” 

It was jvell that Mr. Tiffany had a fashion of emphasizing 
his discourse with a reference to this ancient person, whom 
he supposed to have been an exquisite of the first water, 
which happily furnished a cover under which the entire 
Peabody family exjdoded with laughter at Mr. Carrack’s 
announcement of the sudden termination of his grand ex- 


66 


CHANTICLEEli. 


pedition to the Gold Region. Without an exception they 
all went off in an enormous hurst, the Captain, little Sara, 
and Mopsey leading. 

“ Every word true, ’pon my honor,” repeated Mr. Carrack. 

The great burst was renewed. 

“ It was a capital idea, wasn’t it ?” he said again, suppos 
ing he had made a great hit. 

The explosion for the third time, but softened a little by 
pity in the female section of the chorus. 

Mrs. Carrack had sat stately and aloof, with an inkling in 
her brain that all this mirthful tumult was not entirely in 
the nature of a complimentary tribute to her son. 

“ I think,” she said, with haughty severity of aspect, “my 
son was perfectly right. It was a sinful and a wicked ad- 
venture at the best, as the Reverend Strawbery Hyson 
clearly showed from the fourth Revelations, in his last an- 
nual discourse to the young ladies of the Church.” 

“ He did, so he did,” said Mr. Tiffany, stroking his chin, 
“ I remember perfectly : it was very prettily stated by 
Hyson.” 

“ The Reverend Strawbery Hyson,” said Mrs. Carrack. 
“Always give that excellent man his full title. What would 
you say, my son, if he should appear in the streets without 
his black coat and white cravat? Would you have any 
confidence in his preaching after that ?” 

“Next to myself,” answered Mr. Tiffany, “I think our 
parson’s the best-dressed man in Boston.” 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 67 

* 

“ He should be, as an example,” said Mrs. Carrack. “ He 
has a very genteel congregation.” 

Old Sylvester, who had on at that moment an old brown 
coat and a frayed black ribbon for a neckcloth, ordered 
Mopsey to send the two best pies in the house immediately 
to the negroes in the Hills. Mrs. Carrack smiled loftily, and 
drew from her pocket an elegant small silver vial of the 
pure otto of rose, and applied it to her nostrils as though 
something disagreeable had just struck upon the air and 
tainted it. 

“By the way,” said Mr. Tiffany Carrack, adjusting his 
shirt-collar, “ how is my little friend Miriam ?” 

“Melancholy!” was the only answer any one had to 
make. 

“ So I thought,” pursued Mr. Carrack, rolling his eyes and 
heaving an infant sigh from his bosom. “ Poor thing, no 
wonder, if she thought I was gone away so far. She shall 
be comforted.” 

Mopsey looking in at this moment, gave the summons to 
tea, which was answered by Mr. Tiffany Carrack’s offering 
his arm, impressively, to his excellent mother, and leading 
the way to the table. 

It was observed, that in his progress to the- tea-table, Mr. 
Tiffany adopted a tottering and uncertain step, indicating a 
dilapidated old age, only kept together by the clothes he 
wore, which was altogether unintelligible to the Peabody 
family, seeing that Mr. Carrack was in the very prime of 


68 


CHANTICLEER. 


youth, till Mrs. Carrack remarked, with an affectionate smile 
of motherly pride : 

“You remind me more and more every day, Tiff, of that 
dear delightful old Baden-Baden.” 

“ I wish the glorious old fellow would come over to me 
for a short lark,” rejoined Mr. Tiffany. “ But he couldn’t 
live here long ; there’s nothing old here.” * 

“ Who’s Baden-Baden ?” asked Sylvester. 

“ Only a prince of my acquaintance on the other side of 
the water, and a devilish clever fellow. But he couldn’t 
stand it here, I’m afraid — every thing’s so new.” 

“I’m rather old,” suggested Sylvester, smiling on the 
young man. 

“ So you are, by Jove. But that ain’t the thing I want 
exactly I want an old castle or two, and a donjon-keep, 
and that sort of thing. You understand.” 

“Something,” suggested the grandfather, “in the style of 
the old revolutionary fort on Fort Hill ?” 

“No — no — you don’t take exactly. I mean something 
more in the antique — something or other, you see” — here 
he began twirling his forefinger in the air and sketching an 
amorphous phantom of some sort, of an altogether unattain- 
able character, “ in a word — Jehosaphat !” 

The moment the eye of Mrs. Carrack fell upon the blue 
and white crockery, the pewter plates which had been in 
use time out of mind in the family, and the plain knives and 
forks of steel, she cast on her son a significant glance o^ 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 


69 


mingled surprise and contempt. “ Thomas,” she said, stand- 
ing before the place assigned to her, her son doing the 
same, “ the napkins !” 

The napkins were brought from a great basket which 
had accompanied the leathern trunk. 

“ The other things !” 

The other things, consisting of china plates, cups, and 
saucers, and knives and forks -of silver for two, were duly 
laid : Mrs. Carrack and her son, having kept the rest of the 
family w'aiting the saying of grace by old Sylvester, were 
good enough to be seated at the old farmer’s (Mrs. Carrack’s 
father’s) board. 

When old Sylvester unclosed his eyes from the delivery 
of thanks, he discovered at the back of Mrs. Carrack and her 
son’s chairs, the two-city servants in livery, with their short- 
cut hair, and embroidered coats of the fashion of those worn 
in English farces on the stage, standing erect, and without 
the motion of a muscle. There is not a doubt but that old 
Sylvester Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he 
gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two young 
men in livery began to dive in here and there about the 
table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive service on Mrs. 
Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he could remain silent no 
longer. 

“ Boys,” he said, addressing himself to the two fine per- 
sonages in question, “ you will oblige me by going into the 
yard and chopping wood till we are done supper. W'e 


70 


CHANTICLEER. 


shall need all you can split in an hour to bake the pies 
with.” 

Thunder-struck, as though a bolt had smitten them indi- 
vidually in the head, this direction, delivered in a quiet voice 
of command not to be resisted, sent the two servants forth 
at the back-door. They were no sooner out of view than 
they addressed each other almost at the same moment, 
“ My eyes ! di(i you ever see such a queer old fellow as 
that ?” 

When Mrs. Garrick and her son turned, and found that 
the two young gentlemen in livery had actually vanished, 
the lady smiled a delicate smile of gentle scorn, and Mr. 
Tiffany, regarding his aged grandfather steadily, merely 
remarked, in a tone of most friendly and familiar con- 
descension, “ Baden-Baden wouldn’t have done such a 
thing !” 

The overpowering grandeur of the fashionable lady chilled 
the household, and there was little conversation till she 
addressed the widow Margaret. 

Hadn’t you a grown-up son, Mrs. Peabody ?” 

The widow was silent. Presently Mr. Garrick renewed 
the discourse. 

“ By the by,” he said, “ I thought I saw that son of yours 
— wasn’t his name Elbridge, or something of that sort ? — in 
New Orleans.” 

“Did you speak to him?” asked the Gaptain, flushing a 
little in the face. 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 71 

“ I observed he was a good deal out at elbows,” Mr. Car- 
rack answered ; “ and it was broad daylight, in one of the 
fashionable streets.” 

“ Is that all you have to tell us of your cousin ?” old Syl- 
vester inquired. 

“ He is my cousin — much obliged for the information. I 
had almost forgotten that! Why ye-es — I couldn’t help 
seeing that he went into a miserable broken-down house in 
a by-street — but had to get my moustache oiled for a Creole 
ball that evening, and couldn’t be reasonably expected to 
follow him, could I ? — Jehoshaphat !” 

If the human countenance, by reason of its clouding up in 
gusts of pitchy blackness, acquired the power, like darkening 
skies, of discharging thunder-bolts, it would have been, I am 
sure, a hot and heavy one which Mopsey, blackening and 
blazing, had delivered, as she departed to the kitchen, lower- 
ing upon Mr. Tiffany Carrack, — “ ‘ He thought he saw her 
son Elhridge P The vagabone has no more feeling nor de 
bottom of a stone jug.” 

The meal over, the evening wore on in friendly chat of 
old Thanksgiving times — of neighbors and early family his- 
tories ; each one in turn launching, so to speak, a little boat 
upon the current, freighted deep with many precious stores 
of old time remembrance ; Mrs. Carrack sitting alone as an 
iceberg in the very midst of the waters, melting not once, 
nor contributing a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And 
when bedtime came again, how clearly was it shown, that 


72 


CHAN'IICLEER. 


there is nothing certain in this changeful world ! By some 
sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations lose power, com- 
munities are shattered, households well-constructed fall in 
pieces at a breath. 

Her sudden appearance in their midst, compelled another 
consultation to be taken as to the disposal of the great Mrs. 
Carrack for the night. It would never answer to put that 
grand person in any secondary lodging; so all the old 
arrangements were of necessity broken up ; the best bed- 
room allotted to her ; and that her gentle nerves might not 
be afflicted, the old clock, which adjoined her sleeping- 
chamber, and which had occupied his corner and told the 
time for the Peabodys for better than a hundred years from 
the same spot, was instantly silenced, as impertinent. The 
Captain’s high-actioned white horse, which had enjoyed the 
privilege of roaming unmolested about the house, was led 
away like an unhappy convict, and stabled in the barn ; and 
to complete the arrangements, the two servants in livery 
were put on guard near her window, to drive off the geese, 
turkeys, and other talkative birds of the night, that she 
might sleep without the slightest disturbance from that noisy 
old creature, Nature. 

Mr. Tiffany Carrack, while these delicate preparations were 
in progress, was evidently agitated with some extraordinary 
design, in which Miriam Haven was bearing a part ; for, 
although he did not address a word to that young maiden, 
he was as busy as his imitation of the antiquity of Baden- 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 


73 


Baden would allow him, ogling, grimacing, and plucking 
his tawny beard at her every minute in the most astonishing 
manner, closely watched by Mopsey, the Captain, and old 
Sylvester, who strongly suspected the young man of being 
affected in his wits. 

It was very clear that it was this same Mr. Tiffany Carrack 
who had entered in at the door of the sleeping-chamber assign- 
ed to that gentleman, but who would have ventured to assert 
that the figure, which, somewhere about the middle of the 
night, emerged from the window of the chamber in question, 
in yellow slippers, red silk cloak trimmed with gold, fez cap, 
and white muslin turban, and, with folded arms, began 
pacing up and down under the casement of Miriam Haven, 
after the manner of singers at the opera, preparatory to be- 
ginning, was the same Tiffany ? And yet, when he returned 
again, and holding his face up to the moon, which was 
shining at a convenient angle over the edge of the house, 
the tawny tuft clearly identified it as Tiffany, and no one 
else. And yet, as if to further confuse all recognition, what 
sound is that which breaks from his throat, articulating — 

“ Dearest, awake — you need not fear, 

For he— for he— your Troubadour is here !” 

The summons passed for some time unanswered, till Mop- 
sey, from the little end-window of her lodgment, presented 
her head in a flaming red and yellow handkerchief, and 
rolled her eyes about to discover the source of the tumult ; 


74 


CHANTICLEER. 


scowling in the belief that it must be no other than “ one of 
dem Bnindages come to carry off in de dead of night de 
Peabody punkin.” 

A gentle conviction was dawning in the brain of Mr. 
Carrack that this was the fair Miriam happily responding to 
his challenge in the appropriate character and costume of a 
Moorish Princess ; when, as he began to roar again, still 
more violent and furious in his chanting, the black head 
opened and demanded, “ What you want dere ?” followed by 
an extraordinary shower of gourd-shells, which, crashing 
upon his sconce, with a distinct shatter for each shell, could 
not, for a moment, be mistaken for flowers, signet-rings, or 
any other ordinarily recognized love-tokens. 

It immediately occurred to Mr. Carrack, with the sudden- 
ness of inspiration, that he had better return to his chamber 
and go to bed ; a design which was checked, as he pro- 
ceeded in that direction, by the alarming apparition of a 
great body with a firelock thrust out of the window of the 
apartment, next to his own, occupied by the Captain, pre- 
sented directly at his head, with a cry “ Avast, there !” and 
a movement, on the part of the body, to follow the gun out 
at the window. Fearfully harassed in that quarter, Mr. 
Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering, as he turned, 
the two servants in livery, still making the circuit of the 
homestead — who, in alarm of their lives from this singular 
figure in the red cloak, fled into the fields and lurked in an 
old outhouse till daylight. As these scampered away be- 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 75 

fore him, Mr. Tiffany, to relieve himself of the apparition 
of the gun, would haver turned the corner of the house ; 
when Mopsey appeared, wildly gesticulating, with a great 
brush-broom reared aloft, and threatening instant ruin to 
his person. 

From this double peril, what but the happiest genius 
could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant and straight- 
forward flight from the house ; in which he immediately 
engaged, making up the road — the Captain with his musket, 
and Mopsey with her hearth-broom, close at his heels. If 
Mr. Tiffany Carrack had promptly employed his undoubted 
resources of youth and activity, his escape from the neces- 
sity of disclosure or surrender had been perhaps easy ; but 
it so happened that his progress was a good deal baffled by 
the conflict constantly kept up in his brain, between the de- 
sire to use his legs in the natural manner, and to preserve 
that antique pace of tottering gentility which he had ac- 
quired from that devilish flne old fellow, the Prince of 
Baden-Baden, so that at one moment he was in the very 
hands of the enemy, and at the next, flying like an antelope 
in the distance. The gun, constantly following him with a 
loud threat, from the Captain, seemed, in the moonlight, 
like a groat Anger perpetually pointing at his head ; till at 
last it became altogether too dreadful to bear, and making 
up the road towards Brundage’s, which still further inflamed 
the pursuit, in sheer exhaustion he rushed through an open 
gale into a neighboring tan-yard, and took refuge in the old 


76 


CHANTICLEER. 


bark-mill. There was bat a moment’s rest allowed him even 
here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously threatening all 
sorts of death and destruction, presently rushed in at the 
door, and sent him scampering about the ring like a dis- 
tracted colt, in his first day’s service ; a game of short dura- 
tion, for the Captain and Mopsey, closing in upon him from 
opposite directions, compelled him to retreat again into the 
open air. How much longer the chase might have con- 
tinued, it were hard to tell, for as his pursuers made after 
him, Mr. Tiffany Carrack suddenly disappeared, like a melted 
snow-flake, from the surface of the earth. In his confused 
state he had tumbled into a vat, fortunately without the 
observation of the .inexorable enemy, although as he clung 
to the side the Captain discharged his musket directly over 
his head. 

“ I guess that’s done his business,” said the Captain. 
“ We’ll come and look for the body in the morning.” 

Now it is strongly suspected that both Mopsey and the 
Captain knew well enough all along that this was Mr. 
Tiffany Carrack they had been pursuing, and that as they 
watched him from the distance emerge from the vat, return 
to the homestead, and skulk, dripping in, like a rat of out- 
landish breed, at his chamber-window, they were amply 
avenged : the Captain, for the freedom with which the city- 
exquisite had treated the Peabody family, especially the 
good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the slighting manner 
in which he had referred to absent young Mas’r Elbridge. 


THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON. 


77 


When all was peace again within the homestead, there 
was one who still watched the night, and ignorant of the na- 
ture of this strange tumult, trembled as at the approach of a 
long wished for happiness. It was Miriam, the orphan de- 
pendent, who now sat by the midnight casement. Oh, who 
of living men can tell how that young heart yearned at the 
thought — the hope — the thrilling momentary belief — that 
this was her absent lover happily returning ? 

In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which was it 
shone brightest and with purest lustre, in view of the all- 
seeing Mover of the Heavens — the stars glittering far away 
in space, in all their lofty glory, or the timid eyes of that 
simple maiden, wet with the dew of youth, and bright with 
the pure hope of honest love ? When all was still again, 
and no Elbridge’s voice was heard, no form of absent 
Elbridge there to cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to 
breaking, in its silent agony, was that young heart, and with 
what tremblings of solicitude and fear, the patient Miriam 
waited for the friendly light to open the golden gate of 
dawn upon another morrow ! 


CHAPTER SEVENTH. 


THE THANKSGIVING SERMON. 

The momiDg of the day of Thanksgiving came calm, 
clear, and beautiful. A stillness, as of heaven and not of 
earth, ruled the wide landscape. The Indian summer, which 
had been as a gentle mist or veil upon the beauty of the 
time, had gone away a little — retired, as it were, into the 
hills and back country, to allow the undimmed heaven to 
shine down upon the happy festival of families and nations. 
'Jdie cattle stood still in the fields without a low ; the trees 
were quiet as in friendly recognition of the spirit of the hour ; 
no ]-eaper’s hook or mower’s scythe, glanced in the meadow, 
no rumbling wain was on the road. The birds alone, as 
being more nearly akin to the feeling of the scene, warbled 
in the boughs. 


THE THANKSGIVING SERMON. 79 

But out of tlie silent gloom of the mist there sprang, as by 
magic, a lovely illumination which lit the country far and 
wide, as with a thousand vari-colored lamps. As a maiden 
who has tarried in her chamber, some hour the least ex- 
pected appears before us, apparelled in all the pomp and hue 
of brilliant beauty, the fair country, flushed with innumer- 
able tints of the changed autumn-trees, glided forth upon 
the Indian summer scene, and taught that when kindly_, 
nature seems all foregone and spent, she can rise from her 
couch fresher and more radiant than in her very prime. - 

What wonder if with the peep of dawn the children 
leaped from bed, eager to have on their new clothes reserved 
for the day, and by times appeared before old Sylvester in 
proud array of little hats, new brightened shoes and shining 
locks, span new, as though they had just come from the 
mint ; anxious to have his grandfatherly approval of their 
comeliness ? Shortly after, the horses caught in the distant 
pastures, the Captain and Farmer Oliver having charge of 
them, were brought in and tied under the trees in the door- 
yard. 

Then, breakfast being early dispatched, theie was a 
mighty running to and fro of the grown people, through the 
house, dresses hurried from old clothes-presses and closets, a 
loud demand on every hand for pins, of which there seemed 
to be (as there always is on such occasions) a great lack. 
The horses were put to Mrs. Carrack’s coach, the Captain’s 
gig, the old house-wagon, with breathless expectation ou the 


80 


CUANTICLEEE. 


part of the children ; and in brief, after bustling preparation 
and incessant summoning of one member of the family and 
another from the different parts of the house, all being 
at last ready and in their seats, the Peabodys set forth for 
the Thanksgiving Sermon at the country Meeting-house, a 
couple of miles away. 

The Captain took the lead with his wife, and Peabody 
Junior somewhere and somehow between them, followed by 
the wagon with old Sylvester, still proud of his dexterity as 
a driver, Oliver; much pleased withThe popular character of 
the conveyance, and wife, with young Robert; William 
Peabody and wife ; little Sam riding between his grand- 
father’s legs in front, and allowed to hold the end of the 
reins. Slowly, and in great state, after all, rolled Mrs. Car- 
rack’s coach with herself and son within, and footman and 
coachman without. 

Chanticleer, too, clear of eye and bright of wing, walked 
the garden wall, carried his head up, and acted as if he had 
also put on his thanksgiving suit and expected to take the 
road presently, accompany the family, and join his voice with 
theirs at the little Meeting-house. 

Although the Captain, with his high-actioned white horse, 
kept out of eye-shot ahead, it was Mrs. Carrack’s fine car- 
riage that had the triumph of the road to itself ; for as it 
rolled glittering on, the simple country people, belated in 
their own preparations, or tarrying at home to provide the 
dinner, ran to the windows in wonder and admiration. The 


THE THANKSGIVING SERMON. 


81 


plain wagons, bent in the same direction, turned out of the 
path and gave the great coach the better half of the way, 
staring a broadside as it passed. 

And when the party reached the little meeting-house, 
what a peace hung about it ! The air seemed softer, the 
sunshine brighter, there, as it stood in humble silence among 
the tall trees which waved with a gentle murmur before its 
windows. The people, as they arrived, glided noiselessly in, 
in their neat dresses and looks of decent devotion ; others, as 
they came, made fast their horses under the sheds and trees 
about — most of them in wagons and plain chaises, brightened 
into all of beauty they were capable of, by a severe attention 
to the harness and mountings; others — these were a few 
bachelors and striplings — trotted in quietly on horseback. 
Before service a few of the old farmers lingered outside dis- 
cussing the late crops or inquiring after each other’s families, 
who presently went within, summoning from the grassy 
churchyard — which lay next to the meeting-house — the 
children who were loitering there reading the grave-stones. 

When the Captain arrived with his gig, under such ex- 
traordinary headway that he was near driving across the 
grave-yard into the next county — the country-people scam- 
pered aside, like scared fowl ; Mrs. Carrack’s great coach, 
with its liveried outriders, set them staring as if they did not 
or could not believe their own eyes. With the arrival of old 
Sylvester they re-gathered, and almost in a body proffered 
their aid to hold the horses — to help the old patriarch to the 
C 


82 


CHANTICLEEll. 


ground — in a word, to sliow their regard and affection in 
every way in their power. He tarried but a moment at the 
door, to speak a word with one or two of the oldest of his 
neighbors, and passed in, followed by all of his family save 
Mrs. Carrack and her son, who, under color of hunting up the 
grave of some old relation, delay in order to make their 
appearance in the meeting-house by themselves, and inde- 
pendently of the Peabody connection. 

Will you pardon me, reader, if I fail to tell you whether 
this house of worship was of the Methodist, Episcopal, or 
Baptist creed ? Whether it had a chancel or altar, or painted 
windows? Whether the pews had doors to them, and were 
cushioned or not? Whether the minister wore a gown and 
bands, or plain suit of black, or was undistinguished in his 
dress ? Will it not suffice, if I tell you, as the very belief of 
my soul, that it was a Christian house, that there were seats 
for all, that things were well intended and decently ordered, 
and that with a hymn sung, with such purity of heart 
that its praises naturally joined in with the chiming of the 
trees and the carols of the birds without, and floated on with- 
out a stop to Heaven, when a meek man rose up : 

“ Some two hundred years ago, our ancestors (he said,) 
finding themselves more comfortable in the wilderness of 
the new world, than they could have reasonably looked for, 
set apart a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for his 
manifold mercies. That day, God be praised, has been 
steadily observed throughout this happy land, by cheerful 


tup: thanksgiving sermon. 83 

gatherings of families, and other festive and devotional 
observances, down to the present time. Our fathers cove- 
nanted, in the love of Christ, to cleave together as brethren, 
however hard the brunt of foi tune might be. That bond 
still continues. We may not live (he went on, in the very 
spirit and letter of the first Thanksgiving discourse ever 
delivered amongst us), as I’etired hermits, each in our cell 
apart, nor inquire, like David, how liveth such a man ? 
How is he clad ? How is he fed ? He is my brother, we 
are in league together, we must stand and fall by one 
another. Is his labor harder than mine ? Surely I will 
ease him. Hath he no bed to lie on ? I have two — I will 
lend him one. Hath he no apparel ? I have two suits — I 
will give him one of them. Eats he coarse food, biead and 
water, and have I better ? Surely we will part stakes. He 
js as good a man as I, and we are bound each to other ; so 
that his wants must be my wants ; his sorrows my sorrows ; 
his sickness my sickness ; and his welfare my welfare ; for I 
am as he is ; such a sweet sympathy Avere excellent, com- 
fortable, nay, heavenly, and is the only maker and conserver 
of churches and commonwealths.” 

To such as looked upon old Sylvester there seemed a glow 
and halo about his aged brow and whitened locks, for this 
was the very spirit of his life. 

As though he knew the very secrets of their souls, and 
touched their very heart-strings with a gentle hand, the 
preacher glanced from one member of'the Peabody house- 


84 


CHANTICLEER. 


hold to another, as he proceeded, something in this manner. 
(For William Peabody) : Do I find on this holy day that I love 
God in all his glorious universe, more than the image even of 
Liberty, which hath ensnared and enslaved the soul of many 
a man on the coin of this world ? (For buxom Mrs. Jane, in 
her Vandyke) : Do I stifle the vanity of good looks and 
comfortable circumstances under a plain garb? (For ihe 
jovial Captain) : Am I not over hasty in pursuit of carnal 
enjoyment? (For Mr. Oliver, who was wiping his brow 
with the Declaration of Independence), and eager over-much 
for the good opinion of men, when I should be quietly serv- 
ing them without report ? ’ (For Mrs. Carrack and her son) : 
And what are pomp and fashion, but the painted signs of 
good living where there is no life ? These (he cojitinued) 
are all outward, mere pretences to put oflf our duty, and the 
care of our souls. • Yea, we may have churches, schools, 
hospitals abounding — but these are mere lath and mortar, 
if we have not also within our own hearts a Church where 
the pure worship ever goeth on, a school where the true 
knowledge is taught, a hospital, the door whereof standeth 
constantly open, into which our fellow-creatures are wel- 
comed, and where their infirmities are first cared for with 
all kindness and tenderness. If these be our inclinings this 
day, let us be reasonably thankful on this Thanksgiving 
morning. Let such as are in health be thankful for their 
good case ; and such as are out of health be thankful 
that thev are no worse. Let such as are rich be thankful 


THE THAlrti;SGIVING SERMON. 


85 


for their wealth (if it hath been honestly come by) ; and 
let such as are poor be thankful that they have no such 
charge upon their souls. Let old folks be thankful for their 
wisdom in knowing that young folks are fools ; and let 
young ones be thankful that they may live to see the time 
when they may use the same privilege. Let lean folks be 
thankful for their spare ribs, which arc not a burden in the 
harvest-field : fat folks may laugh at lean ones, and grow 
fatter every day. Let married folks be thankful for blessings 
both little and great ; let bachelors and old maids be thank- 
ful for the privilege of kissing other folks’ babies, and great 
good may it do them. 

With what a glow of mutual friendship the quaint preach- 
er was warming the plain old meeting-house on that thanks- 
giving day ! 

Finally, and to conclude (he went on in the language of 
a chronicle of- the time) : — Let no man look upon a turkey 
to-day, and say, ‘ This also is vanity.’ What is the life of 
man without creature-comforts, and the stomach of the son 
of man with no aid from the tin kitchen ? Despise not the 
day of small things, while there are pullets on the spit, and 
let every fowl have fair play, between the jaws of thy phi- 
losophy. Are not puddings made to be sliced, and pie-crust 
to be broken ? Go thy ways, then, according to good sense, 
good cheer, good appetite, the Governor’s proclamation, and 
every other good thing under the sun ; — render thanks for 
all the good things of this life, and good cookery among the 


86 


CHANTICLEER. 


rest ; eat, drink, and be merry ; make not a lean laudation 
of the bounties of Providence, but let a lively gusto follow 
a long grace. Feast thankfully, and feast hopingly ; feast 
in good-will to all mankind, Grahamites included ; feast in 
the full and joyous persuasion, that while the earth re- 
maineth, seed-time and harvest, dinner-time, pudding-time, 
and supper-time, are not likely to go out of fashion ; — feast 
with exulting confidence in the continuance of cooks, kitch- 
ens, and orthodox expounders of Scripture and the con- 
stitution in our ancient, blessed, and fat-sided common- 
wealth — feast, in short, like a good Christian, proving all 
things, relishing all things, hoping all things, expecting all 
things, and enjoying all things. Let a good stomach for 
dinner go hand in hand with a good mind for sound doc- 
trine. Let us all be thankful that a gracious Providence 
hath furnished each and all with a wholesome and bountiful 
dinner this day ; and, if there be none so furnished, let him 
now make it known, and we will instantly contribute thereto 
of our separate abundance. There are none who murmur — 
we all, therefore, have a thanksgiving dinner waiting for us : 
let us hie home cheerily, and in a becoming spirit of mirth 
and devotion partake thereof. 

The windows of the little meeting-house were up, to let 
in the pleasant sunshine ; and the very horses who were 
within hearing of his voice, seemed by the pricking up of 
their brown ears to relish and approve of his discourse. 
The Captain’s city nag, as wide awake as any, seemed to 


THE THANKSGIVING SERMON. 


87 


address himself to an acquaintance of a heavy bay plougher, 
who stood at the same post, and laying their heads together 
for the better part of the sermon, they appeared to regard 
it, as far as they caught its meaning, as* sound doctrine, par- 
ticularly acknowledging that this was as fine a thanksgiving 
morning as they (who had been old friends and had spent 
their youth together, being in some way related, in a farm- 
house in that neighborhood) had ever known ; and when 
they had said as much as this, they laughed out in very 
merriness of spirit, with a great winnow, as the happy au- 
dience came streaming forth at the meeting-house door. 
There were no cold, haughty, or distrustful faces now, as 
when they had entered in an hour ago ; the genial air of 
the little meeting-house had melted away all frosts of that 
kind ; and as they mingled under the sober autumn trees, 
loitering for conversation, inquiring after neighbors, old folks 
whose infirmities kept them at home, the young children, 
they seemed, indeed, much more a company of brethren, 
embarked (as sailors say) on a common bottom for happi- 
ness and enjoyment. The children were the first to set out 
for home through the fields on foot ; Peabody the younger, 
little Sam and Robert, being attended by the footman in 
livery, whom Mrs. Carrack relieved from attendance at the 
rear of the coach. 

If the quaint preacher had urged the rational enjoyment 
of the Thanksgiving cheer from the pulpit, Mopsey labored 
with equal zeal at home to have it worthy of enjoyment. 


88 


CHANTICLEER. 


At an early hour she had cleared decks, and taken possession 
of the kitchen — kindling, with dawn, a great fire in the 
oven for the pies, and another on the hearth for the turkey. 
But it was from the oven, heaping it to the top with fresh 
relays of dry wood, that she expected the Thanksgiving 
angel to walk in all his beauty and majesty. In performance 
of her duty, and from a sense only that there could be no 
thanksgiving without a turkey, she planted the tin oven on 
the hearth, spitted the gobbler, and from time to time, merely 
as a matter of absolute necessity, gave it a turn ; but about 
the mouth of the great oven she hovered constantly, like a 
spirit ; had her head in and out at the opening every other 
minute ; and, when at last the pies were slided in upon the 
warm bottom, she lingered there regarding the change they 
were undergoing with the fond admiration with which a 
connoisseur in sunsets hangs upon the changing colors of the 
evening sky. The leisure this double duty allo^wed her was 
employed by Mopsey in scaring away the poultry and idle 
young chickens which rushed in at the back entrance of the 
kitchen in swarms, and hopped 'with yellow legs about the 
floor with the racket of constant falling showers of corn. 
Upon the half-door opening on the front the red rooster 
had mounted, and with his head on one side, observed with 
a knowing eye all that went forward ; showing, perhaps, most 
interest in the turning of the spit, the impalement of the 
turkey thereon having been with him an object of special 
consideration. 


THE THANKSGIVING SERMON.' 89 

The highly colored picture of Warren at Bunker Hill, 
writhing in his death-agony on one wall of the kitchen, and 
General Marion feasting from a potato, in his tent, on the 
other, did not in the least attract the attention of Mopsey. 
She saw nothing on the whole horizon of the glowing apart- 
ment but the pies and the turkey, and even for the moment 
neglected to puzzle herself, as she was accustomed to in the 
pauses of her daily labors, with the wonders and mysteries 
of an ancient dog-eared spelling-book which lay upon the 
smoky mantel. 

Meanwhile, in obedience to the spirit of the day, the 
widow Margaret and Miriam, having each diligently dis- 
posed of their separate charge in the preparations, making 
a church of the homestead, conducted a worship in their 
own simple way. Opposite to each other in the little sitting- 
room, Miriam opened the old Family Bible, and, at the widow 
Margaret’s request, read from that chapter which gives the 
story of the prodigal son. It was with a clear and pensive 
voice that she read, but not without a struggle with herself. 
Where the story told that the young man had gone into a 
far country ; that he had wasted his substance in riotous 
living ; that he was abased to the feeding of swine ; that he 
craved in his hunger the very husks ; that he lamented the 
plenty of his father’s house — a cloud came upon her coun- 
tenance, and the simplest eye could have interpreted the 
thoughts that troubled her. And how the fair young face 
brightened, when she read that the young man resolved to 


90 


CHANTICLEER. 


arise and return to the house of his father ; the dear en- 
counter ; the rejoicing over his return, and the glad procla- 
mation, “ This, my son, was dead and is alive again ; he was 
lost, and is found.” 

“ If he would come back even so,” said the widow when 
the book was closed, “ in sorrow, in poverty, in crime even, 
I would thank God and be grateful.” 

“ He is not guilty, mother,” Miriam pleaded, casting her head 
upon the widow’s bosom and clinging close about her neck. 

“ I will not think that he is,” Margaret answered, lifting 
up her head. “ Guilty or innocent, he is my son — my son.” 
Clasping the young orphan’s hand, after a pause of tender 
silence, she gave utterance to her feelings in a Thanksgiving 
hymn. These were the words : 

Father ! protect the wanderer on liis way ; 

Bright be for him thy stars, and calm thy sea’s — 

Thanksgiving live upon his lips to-day, 

And in his heart the good man’s summer ease. 

Almighty ! Thou canst bring the pilgrim back, 

With a clear brow to this his childish home ; 

Guide him, dear Father, o’er a blameless track. 

No more to stray from us, no more to roam. 

At .this moment a tumult of children’s voices was hoard 
in the door-yard, and as the widow turned, young William 
Peabody was seen struggling with Robert and little Sam, 
who were holding him back with all their force. As he 
dragged ‘them forward, being their elder and superior in 


THE THANKSGIVING SERMON. 


91 


Strength, Peabody junior stretched his throat and called 
towards the house — “ I’ve seen him — I’ve seen him !” 

“Who have you seen ?” asked the widow, rising and ap- 
proaching the door. 

“ Mr. Barbary.” When Peabody Junior made this an- 
swer the widow advanced with a gleam on her countenance, 
and gently releasing him, said, “Come, William, and tell us 
all about it.” 

“ Aunt Margaret,” said Robert, thrusting himself between, 
“don’t listen to a word he has to say. I’ll tell you all 
about it. You see we were coming home from meeting, and 
little Sam got tired, and William and I made a cradle of our 
hands and were carrying him along very nice.” 

“Not so very nice, either,” Peabody Junior interrupted, 
“ for I was plaguy tired.” 

“ That’s what I was going to tell you. Aunt Margaret. 
Bill did get tired, and as we came through the Locust Wood, 
he made believe to see something, and run away to get clear 
of carrying little Sam any farther.” 

“ I did see him !” said Peabody Junior, firmly. 

“ Where was he ?” the widow asked. 

“ Behind the hazel-bush, with his head just looking out 
at the top, all turned white as dead folks do.” 

Mopsey was in immediately with her dark head, crying 
out, “ Don’t belief a word of it.” 

“ I guess you saw nothing but the hazel-bush, William,” 
said the widow. 


92 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ That was it, Aunt; it was the hazel-bush with a great 
mop of moss on it,” Robert added. 

Miriam sat looking on and listening, pale and trembling. 

“ If your cousin Elbridge and Mr. Barbary should ever 
come back,” said the widow, addressing Peabody Junior, 
“you would be sorry for what you have said, William.” 

“ So he would, Aunt,” echoed Robert. 

Mopsey was in again from the kitchen ; this time she 
advanced several steps from the door-sill into the room, 
lifted up both her arms and addi'essed the assembled 
company. 

“ One ting I know,” said Mopsey, “ dere’s a big pie bak- 
ing in dat ere oven, and if Mas’r Elbridge don’t eat dat pie 
it’ll haf to sour, dat I know.” 

“ What is it, Mopsey,” asked Margaret, “ that gives you 
such a faith in my son 

I tell you what it is. Missus,” Mopsey answered prompt- 
ly: “dast tanksgivin when I tumbled down on dis ere sef- 
same floor brinin’ in de turkey, everybody laugh but Mas’r 
Elbridge, and he come from his place and pick me up. He 
murder anybody ! I’ll eat de whole tanksgivin dinner ray- 
sef if he touch a hair of de old preacher’s head to hurt it.” 
Suddenly changing her tone, she added, “Dey’re comin 
from meetin’, I hear de old wagon.” 


CHAPTER EIGHTH. 


THE DINNER. 

As the Peabodys approached the homestead, the smoke of 
the kitchen chimney was visible, circling upward, and wind- 
ing about in the sunshine as though it had been a delicate 
corkscrew uncorking a great bottle or square old flask of a 
delicious vintage. The Captain averred a quarter of a mile 
away, the moment they had come upon the brow of the 
hill, that he had a distinct savor of the fragrance of the 
turkey, and that it was quite as refreshing as the first odor 
of the land-breeze coming in from sea, and he snuffed it 
up with a zeal and relish which gave the gig an eager 
appetite for dinner. The Captain’s conjecture was strongly 
confirmed in the appearance of Mopsey, darting, with a dark 
face of dewy radiance, at the wood-pile, and shuffling back 
5 


94 : 


CHANTICLEER. 


with bustling speed to the kitchen with a handful of deli- 
cate splinters. “ She’s giving him the last turn,” said the 
Captain. 

The shadow of the little meeting-house was still over the 
Captain, even so far away, for he conducted the procession 
homeward at a pace much less furious than that with which 
he had advanced iok the morning ; and Mrs. Carrack, too, 
observed now, with a strange pleasure, what she had given 
no heed to before when the fine coach was rolling in tri- 
umph along the road, — birds twittering in the sunny air by 
the wayside, and cattle roving, like figures in a beautiful pic- 
ture, upon the slopes of the distant hills. Oliver, the poli- 
tician, more than once had out the great cotton pocket- 
hankerchief, and holding it spread before him, contemplating 
the fatherly signers, was evidently acquiring some new 
lights on the subject of independence. 

A change, in fine, of some sort or other, had passed over 
every member of the Peabody family save old Sylvester, — re- 
turning as going, calm, plain-spoken, straightforward, and 
patriarchal. When they reached the gate of the home- 
stead, William Peabody gave his hand to his wife, and 
helped her, with some show of attention, to alight; and 
then there could be no doubt that it was, in very truth. 
Thanksgiving day, for the glory of the door-yard itself had 
paled and disappeared in the gorgeous festal light. There 
was no majestic gobbler in the door-yard now, with his 
great outspread tail, which in the proud moments of his life 


THE DINNER. 


95 


he would have expanded as if to shut the very light of the 
sun from all meaner creatures of the mansion. 

\Vithin-dooi*s there was that bustling preparation, with brief 
lulls of ominous silence, which precede and usher a great 
event. The widow Margaret, with noiseless step, glided to 
and fro, Miriam daintily hovering in the suburbs of the sit- 
ting-room, which is evidently the grand centre of interest ; 
and Mopsey toils like a swart goblin in her laboratory of the 
kitchen, in a high glow, scowling fearfully if addressed with 
a word which calls her attention for a moment away from 
her critical labors. 

As the family entered the homestead on their return, the 
combined forces were just at the point of pitching their tent 
on the ground of the forthcoming engagement, in the 
shape of the ancient four-legged and wide-leaved table, with 
a cover of snowy whiteness, ornamented as with shields and 
weapons of quaint device, in the old plates of pewter, and 
the horn-handled knives and forks burnished to such a pol- 
ish as to make the little room fairly glitter. Dishes streamed 
in, one after the other, in a long and rapid precession, piles 
of home-made bread, basins of apple-sauce, pickles, potatoes 
of vast proportion and mealy beauty. When the ancient 
and lordly pitcher of blue and white (whether freighted 
with new cider or old cold water need not be told) crowned 
the board, the first stage of preparation was complete, and 
another portentous pause ensued. The whole Peabody con- 
nection, arranged in stately silence in the front parlor, looked 


96 


CHANTICLEER. 


on through the open door in wonder and expectation of 
what was to follow. The children loitered about the door- 
ways with watering eyes and open mouths, like so many 
innocent little dragons lying in wait to rush in at an 
opportune moment and bear off their prey. 

And now, all at once, J,here comes a deeper hush — a still 
more portentous pause — all eyes are in the direction of the 
kitchen ; the children are hanging forward, with their bodies 
and outstretched necks half way in at the door; Miriam 
and the widow stand breathless and statue-like at either side 
of the room ; when, as if rising out of some mysterious cave 
in the very ground, a dark figure is discerned in the dis- 
tance, about the centre of the kitchen (into which Mopsey 
has made, to secure an impressive effect, a grand circuit), 
head erect, and bearing before it a huge platter. All their 
eyes tell them, every sense vividly reports, what it is the 
platter supports : she advances with slow and solemn step ; 
she has crossed the sill ; she has entered the sitting-room ; 
and, with a full sense of her awful responsibility, Mopsey 
delivers on the table, in a cleared place left for its careful 
deposit, the Thanksgiving turkey. 

There is no need now to sound a gong, or to ring an 
alarm-bell to make known to that household that dinner is 
ready ; the brown turkey speaks a summons as with the 
voice of a thousand living goblers, and Sylvester rising, the 
whole Peabody family flock in. To every one his place is 
considerately assigned, the Captain in the centre directly 


THE DINNER. 


opposite the turkey, Mrs. Carrack on the other side, the 
widow at one end, old Sylvester at the head. The children 
too, a special exception being made in their favor to-day, 
are allowed seats with the grown folks, little Sam disposing 
himself in great comfort in his old grandsire’s arms. 

Another hush — for every thing to-day moves on through 
these constantly shut and opened gates of silence — in which 
they all sit tranquil and speechless, when the old patriarch 
lifts up his aged hands over the board and repeats his cus- 
tomary grace : 

“ May we all be Chrisdan people the day we die — God 
bless us.” 

The Captain, the great knife and fork in hand, was ready 
to advance. 

“ Stop a moment, Charley,” old Sylvester spoke up, “give 
us a moment to contemplate the turkey.” 

“ I would there were just such a dish, grandfather,” the 
Captain rejoined, “ on every table in the land this day ; and 
if I had my way there would be.” 

“ No, no, Charley,” the grandfather answered, “ if there 
should be, there would be. There is One who is wiser than 
you or I.” 

“ It would make the man who would do it,” Oliver sug- 
gested, “ immensely popular : he might get to be elected 
President of the United States.” 

“ It would cost a large sum,” remarked William Peabody, 
the merchant. 


98 


CHANTICLEER. 


“Let US leave off considering imaginary turkeys, and dis- 
cuss the one before us,” said old Sylvester ; “ but I must first 
put a question, and if it’s answered with satisfaction, we’ll 
proceed. Now tell me,” he said, addressing himself to Mr. 
Carrack, who sat in a sort of dream, as if he had lost his 
identity, as he had ever since the night adventure in the fez 
cap and red silk cloak — “ Now tell me. Tiffany, although 
you have doubtless seen a great many grand things, such as 
the Alps, and St. Peter’s church at Rome, has your eye 
fallen in with any thing, wherever you travelled over the 
world, grander than that Thanksgiving turkey ?” 

Mr. Carrack, either from excessive modesty or total ab- 
straction, hesitated, looked about him hastily, and not till 
the Captain called across the table, “ Why don’t you speak, 
my boy ?” and then, as if suddenly coming to, and realizing 
where he was, answered at last, with great deliberation, “ It 
15 a fine bird.” 

“ Enough said,” spoke up old Sylvester cheerfully ; “ you 
were the last Peabody I expected to acknowledge the merits 
of the turkey and, looking towards the Captain with 
encouragement, added, “ now, knife and fork, do your 
duty.” 

It was short work the jovial Captain made with the prize 
turkey ; in rapid succession plates were forwarded, heaped, 
sent around ; and with a keen relish of the Thanksgiving 
dinner, every head was busy. Straight on, as people who 
have an allotted task before them, the Peabodys moved 


THE DINNER. 


99 


through the dianer — a powerful, steady-going caravan of 
cheerful travellers, over hill, over dale, up the valleys, along 
the stream-side, cropping their way like a nimble-toothed 
flock of grazing sheep, keenly enjoying herbage and beverage 
by the way. 

What though, while they were at the height of its enjoj 
ment, a sudden storm, at that changeful season, arose with 
out, and dashed its heavy drops against the doors and win 
dow-panes ; that only, by the contrast of security and fire 
side comfort, heightened the zest within, while they were 
engaged with the many good dishes at least, but when an- 
other pause came, did not the pelting shower and the chid- 
ing wind talk with them, each one in turn, of the absent, 
and oh! some there will not believe it — the lost? It was 
no doubt some thought of this kind that prompted old Syl- 
vester to speak : 

“ My children,” said the patriarch, glancing with a calm 
eye around the circle of glowing faces at the table, “ you 
are bound together with good cheer and in comfortable cir- 
cumstances ; and even as you, who are here from east and 
west, from the north and the south, by each one yielding a 
little of his individual whim or inclination, can thus sit to- 
gether prosperously and in peace at one board, so can our 
glorious family of friendly States, on this and every other 
day, join hands, and like happy children in the fields, lead 
a far-lengthening dance of festive peace among the moun- 
tains and among the vales, from the soft-glimmering east far 


100 


CHANTICLEER. 


on to the bright and ruddy west. If others still seek to 
join in — ” 

“ Ay, father,” said Oliver, “ there is a great danger.” 

“ Even as by making a little way,” answered the patriarch, 
“ we could find room at this table for one, or two, or three 
more, so may another State and still another join us, if it 
will ; and even as our natural progeny increaseth to the third, 
fourth, tenth generation, let us trust for centuries to come 
this happy Union shall live to lead her sons to peace, pros- 
perity, and rightful glory.” 

“But,” interposed Oliver, the politician, again, with a 
double reference in his thoughts, it would almost seem, to 
an erring State or an absent child, “ one may break away in 
wilfulness or crime — what then ?” 

“ Let us lure it back,” was old Sylvester’s reply, “ with 
gentle appeals. Remember we are all brethren, and that our 
alliance is one not merely of worldly interest, but also of 
family affection. Let us, on this hallowed day,” he added, 
“cherish none but kindly thoughts towards all our kindred, 
and if him we have least esteemed offer the hand, let us take 
it in brotherly regard.” 

There was a pause of silence once again, which was broken 
by a knock at the door. Old Sylvester, having spoken his 
mind, had fallen into a reverie, and the Peabodys glancino- 
one to the other, the question arose, shall the strangers 
(Mopsey reported them to be two), whoever they may be, be 
admitted ? 


THE DINNER. 


101 


“ This is strictly a family festival,” it was suggested, 
“ where no strangers can be rightly allowed.” 

“ May be thieves !” the merchant added. 

“ Vagabonds, perhaps !” Mrs. Carrack suggested. 

“ Strangers, anyhow !” said Mrs. Jane Peabody. 

The widow Margaret and Miriam were silent, and gave 
utterance to no opinion. 

In the midst of the discussion, old Sylvester suddenly 
awakening, and rearing his white locks aloft, in the voice of 
a trumpet of silver sound, cried out — “ If they be human, 
let ’em in !” 

As he delivered this emphatic order there was a deep 
moan at the doorj as of one in great pain, or suffering keenly 
from anguish of spirit ; and when it was opened to admit the 
new-comers, the voice of Chanticleer, raised for the second 
time, broke in, clear and shrilly, from the outer darkness. 


CHAPTER NINTH. 

THE NEW-COMERS. 

It was old Sylvester himself who opened the door and 
admitted the strangers ; one of them, the younger, wore a 
slouched hat, which did not allow his features to be distinctly 
observed, further than that his eyes were bright with a 
strange lustre, and that his face was deadly pale. He was 
partly supported by the elder man, whose person was clad in 
ii long coat, reaching nearly to the ground. 

They were invited to the table, but refusing, asked per- 
mission to sit at the fire ; which being granted, they took 
their station on either side of the hearth. The younger stag- 
gered feebly to his seat and kept his gaze closely fixed on 
the other. 


TIIK NEW-COMERS. 


103 


“ He had better take something,’’ said old Sylvestei', look- 
ing towards the young man and addressing the other. “ Is 
your young friend ill ?” 

“ With an ailment food cannot relieve, I fear,” the elder 
man answered. 

“ Will you not remove your hats ?” old Sylvester asked 
again. 

Turning slowly at this question, the young man answered, 
“ We may not prove fit company for such as you ; and if so 
the event shall prove, w’e will pass on and trouble you no 
farther. If every thread were dry as summer flax,” he added, 
in a tone of deep feeling, “ I, for one, am not fit to sit among 
honest people.” 

“ You should not say so, my son,” said old Sylvester ; 
“ let us hope that all men may on a day like this sit to- 
gether; that, remembering God’s many mercies to us all, 
in the preservation of our lives, in his blessed change of 
seasons, in hours of holy meditation allowed to us, every 
man in very gratitude to the Giver of all Good, for this one 
day in the year at least, may suspend all evil thoughts and 
be at peace with all his fellow-creatures.” 

The young man turned towards the company at the table, 
but not so far that his whole face could be seen. 

“II ave all who sit about you at that table,” he asked, 
glancing slowly around, performed the duty to which you 
refer, and purged their bosoms of unkindness towards their 
fellow-men ? Is there none who grasps the widow’s sub- 


104 CHANTICLEER. 

stance? who cherishes scorn and hatred of kindred ? who 
judges harshly of the absent ?” 

There was a movement in different members of the com- 
pany, but old Sylvester hushed them, with a look, -and took 
upon himself the business of reply. 

“ It may be,” said old Sylvester, “ that some of us are dis- 
quieted, for be it known to you that one of the children 
of this household is absent from among us for causes which 
may well disturb our thoughts.” 

“ I have heard the story,” the young man continued, “ and 
if I know it aright, these are the truths of that history : 
There were two men, friends, once in this neighborhood, Mr. 
Barbary the preacher, and your grandson Elbridge Peabody. 
Something like a year ago the preacher suddenly disappeared 
from this region, and the report arose and constantly spread 
that he had fallen by the hand of his friend, that grandchild 
of yours. It began in a cloudy whisper, afar off, but swelled 
from day to day, from hour to hour, till it overshadowed this 
whole region, and not the least of the darkness it caused was 
on this spot, where this ancient homestead stands, and where 
the young man had grown and lived from the hour of his 
birth. lie saw coldness and avoidance on the highway ; he 
was shrunk from on sabbath-mornings, and by children ; but 
this w'as little and could be borne — the world was against 
him : but when he saw an aged face averted,” he looked at 
old Sylvester steadily, “ and a mother’s countenance sad and 
hostile — ” 


THE NEW-COMERS. 


105 


“ Sad — but not hostile,” the widow murmured. 

“Sorrowful and troubled, at least,” the young man re- 
joined, “ his life, for all of happiness, was at an end. He 
must cease to Jive, or he must restore the ancient sunshine 
which had lighted the windows of the home of his boyhood. 
He knew that his friend had not fallen by his hand ; that he 
still lived, but in a far distant place, which none but a long 
and weary journey could reach.” 

“ He should have declared as much,” interposed the old 
patriarch. 

“ No, sir ; his word would have been but as the frail leaf 
blown idly from the autumn-bough ; nothing but the living 
presence of his friend could silence the voice of the accuser. 
He rose up and departed, without counsel of any, trusting 
only in God and his own strength ; he bore with him neither 
bag nor baggage, scrip nor scrippage — not even a change of 
raiment ; but with a handful of fruit, and the humble pro- 
vision which his good mother had furnished for the harvest- 
field, he set forth ; day and night he journeyed on the track 
he knew his friend had taken to that far country, toiling in 
the fields to secure food and lodging for the night, and some 
scant aids to carry him from place to place, — pushing on 
fast and far through the western country, in hunger and dis- 
tress, passing by the very door of prosperous kinsfolk, but 
not tarrying a moment to seek relief.” 

At this point Mrs. Jane Peabody glanced at her husband. 

“And so by one stage and another, hastening on, ho 


106 


CHANTICLEER. 


reached that great metropolis in the south, the city of New 
Orleans ; often, as he hoped, on the very steps of his fiieud, 
but nev'er overtaking him, with fortune at so low an ebb that 
there he was well-nigh w'asted in strength, hunger-stricken, 
and tattered in dress ; driven to live in hovels till some chance 
restored him the little means to advance ; so mean of person 
that his dearest friend, his nearest kinsman, even his old 
playfellow there,” pointing to Mr. Tiffany Carrack, “who had 
wrestled with him in the hayfield, who had sat with him in 
childish talk often and many a time by summer stream-sides, 
would have passed him by as one unknown.” 

The glance wdiich, in speaking this, he directed at Mr. Car- 
rack, kindled on that young gentleman’s countenance a ruby 
glow, so intense and fiery that it would seem as if it must 
have burned up the tawny tufts before their very eyes, like 
so much dry stubble. There -svas a glow of another kind in 
the Captain’s broad face, which shone like another sun, as 
he contemplated the two young men, glancing from one to 
the other. 

“ The young man, bent on that one purpose as on life 
itself,” he continued, silencing his companion, who seemed 
eager to speak, with a motion of his finger, “ through towns, 
over waters, upon deserts, still pursued his way ; and, to be 
brief in a weary history, tliere, in the very heart of that 
great region of gold, among diggers and searchers, and men 
distracted in a thousand ways in that perilous hunt, to find 
his simple-hearted friend, the preacher, in an out-of-the-way 


THE NEW-COMERS. 


107 


Wilderness among the mountains, exhorting the living, com- 
forting the sick, consoling the dying — and then, for the first 
time, he learned, what his friend h^id carefully concealed be- 
fore, the motive of his self-banishment to this distant coun- 
try.” 

His companion would have spoken, but the young man 
hurrying on, allowed him not a word. 

“ You who know his history,” he continued, addressing 
the company at the table, “ know what calamity had once 
come upon the household of Mr. Barbary, by the unlawful 
thirst for gold ; that he held its love as the curse of curses : 
he thought if he could but once throw himself in its midst, 
where that passion raged the most, he would be doing his 
Master’s service most faithfully, more than in this quiet 
country-place of peaceful households, but when he learned 
the peril and the sore distress of his young friend, he tarried 
not a moment. ‘ To restore peace to one injured mind,’ he 
said ; ‘ to bring back harmony to one household, is a clear 
and certain duty which will outw’eigh the vague chances ot 
the good I may do here.’ The young man cherished but 
one wish; through storm and trial and distress of every 
name and hue, if he could but reach home on the day of 
Thanksgiving, and stand up there before his assembled kin- 
dred a vindicated man, he would be requited fully for all 
his toil. He took ship ; in tempest, and with many risks 
of perishing far away unvindicated, in the middle of the 
wild sea — ” 


108 


CHANTICLEER. 


The widowed mother could restrain herself no longer, 
but rushing forward, she removed the young man’s hat 
from his brow, parted l^is locks, and casting herself upon 
his neck, gave utterance to her feelings in the affecting 
language of Scripture, which she had listened to in the 
morning : “ My son was dead, and is alive again — he was 
lost, and is found !” 

Miriam timidly grasped his offered hand, and was silent. 
The company had risen from the table and gathered 
around. 

“ Now,” said William Peabody, “ I could believe — be 
glad to believe all this, if he had but brought Mr. Barbary 
with him.” 

The elder stranger cast back his coat, removed his hat, 
and standing forth, said, “ I am here, and testify to the 
truth, in every word, of all my young friend has declared 
to you.” 

On this declaration the Peabodys, without an exception, 
hastened to welcome and address the returned Elbridge, and 
closed upon him in a solid group of affectionate acknowl- 
edgment. Old Sylvester stood looking loftily down over all 
from the outer edge of the circle, and while they were busiest 
in congratulations and well-wishes, he went forward. 

“ Stand back !” cried the old man, waving the company 
aside with outspread arms, and advancing with extended 
hand towards his gi andson. “ I have an atonement to render 
here, which 1 call you all to witness.” 


THE NEW-COMERS. 


109 


“I take your hand, grandfather,” Elbridge intei’posed, 
“ but not in acknowledgment of any wrong on your part. 
You have lived a hundred blameless years, and I am not 
the one this day to breathe a reproach for the first time on 
your spotless age.” 

Tears filled the old patriarch’s eyes, and with a gentle 
hand he led his grandson silently to the table, to which the 
whole company returned, there being room for Mr. Barbary 
as well. 

At this crisis of triumphant explanation, Mopsey, who 
had, under one pretext and another, evaded the bringing in 
of the pie to the last moment, appeared at the kitchen-door, 
bearing before her, with that air of extraordinary importance 
peculiar to the negro countenance on eventful occasions, a 
huge brown dish, with which she advanced to the head of 
the table, and with an emphatic bump, answering to the 
pithy speeches of warriors and statesmen at critical moments, 
deposited the great Thanksgiving pumpkin-pie. Looking 
proudly around, she simply said, “ Dere !” 

It was the blossom and crown of Mopsey’s life, the setting 
down and full delivery to the family of that, the greatest 
pumpkin-pie ever baked in that house from the greatest 
pumpkin ever reared among the Feabodys in all her long 
backward recollection of past Thanksgivings ; and her man- 
ner of setting it down, was, in its most defiant form, a 
clincher and a challenge to all makers and bakers of pump- 
kin-pies, to all cutters and carvers, to all diners and eaters, 


no 


CHANTICLEER. 


to all friends and enemies of pumpkin-pie, in the thirty or 
forty United States. The Brundages, too, might come and 
look at it if they had a mind to ! 

The Peabody family, familiar with the pie from earliest 
infancy, were struck dumb, and sat silent for the space of a 
minute, contemplating its vastness and beauty. Old Syl- 
vester even, with his hundred years of pumpkin-pie experi- 
ence, was staggered, and little Sam jumped up and clapped 
his hands in his old grandfather’s arms, and struggled to 
stretch himself across, as if he would appropriate it, by ac- 
tual possession, to himself. The joy of the Peabody s was 
complete, for the lost grandson had returned, and the Thanks- 
giving pic was a glorious one, and if it was the largest share 
that was allotted to the returned Elbridge, will any one 
complain ? And yet at times a cloud came upon the young 
man’s brow, — when dinner was passed with pleasant family 
talk, questionings and experiences, as they sat about the old 
homestead hearth, — which even the playful gambols of the 
children, who sported about him like so many friendly spirits, 
could not drive away. The heart of cousin Elbridge was not 
in their childish freaks and fancies, as it had been in other 
days. The shining solitude looking in at the windows 
seemed to call him without. 

As though it had caught something of the genial spirit 
that glowed within the house, the wind was laid without, 
and the night softened with the beauty of the rising moon. 
With a sadness on his brow which neither the old home- 


THE NEW-COMERS. 


Ill 


stead nor the pure heavens cast there, Elbridge went forth 
into the calm night, and sitting for a while by the road be- 
neath an ancient locust-tree, whgre he had often read his 
book in the summer-times of boyhood, he communed with 
himself. He w'as happy — what mortal man could be hap- 
pier ?— in all his wishes come to pass : his very dreams had 
taken life, and proved to be realities and friends, and yet a 
sadness he could not drive away followed his steps. Why 
was this ? That moment, if his voice or any honorable and 
sinless motion of his hand could have ordained it, he would 
have dismissed himself from life, and ceased to be a living 
partaker in the scenes about him. Even then — for happy 
as he was, he dreaded, in prophetic fear, the chances which 
beset our mortal path. The weight of mortality was heavy 
upon the young man’s spirit. 

Thinking over all the way he had passed, oh, who could 
answer that he, with the thronging company of busy pas- 
sions and desires, could ever hope to reach an old age and 
never go astray ? Oh, blessed is he (he thought) who can 
lie down in death, can close his account with this world, 
having safely escaped the temptations, the crimes, the trials, 
which make of good men even, in moments of weakness 
and misjudgment, the false speaker, the evil-doer, the slan- 
derer, the coward, the hasty assailant, and (oh, dreadful, per- 
chance !) the seeming guilty murderer himself. Strange 
thoughts for a prosperous lover’s night, but earth is not 
heaven. With the sweat of anguish on his brow he bowed 


112 


CHANTICLEER. 


his head as one whose trouble is heavy to be borne. Yet 
even then the thought of the sweet heaven over him, with 
all its glorious promises, came upon him, and as he lifted 
up his eyes from the earth, the moon sailing forth from the 
clouds, and flooding the region with silver light, disclosed a 
figure so gentle and delicate, and in its features so pure of 
all our common passions, it seemed as if his troubled thoughts 
nad summoned, a spirit before him from the better world. 
As he stood regarding it in melancholy calmness, it extended 
towards him a hand. 

“No, no,” he said, declining the gentle salutation and re- 
tiring a pace, “ touch me not, Miriam, I am not worthy of 
your pure companionship. If you knew what passed and 
is passing in my breast, you would loathe me as a leper.” 

She was silent, and dropped her eyes before him. 

“Think not, my gentle mistress,” he added presently, 
“ my heart is changed towards you. The glow is only too 
bright and warm.” 

“ If you love me not, Elbridge,” she interposed quickly, 
“ fear not to say so, even now. I will bear the pang as best 
I can.” 

“ You have suffered too much already,” he rejoined, touched 
to the heart. “ My long silence must have been as death to 
one so kind and gentle.” 

“ I have suffered,” was all she said. “ One word from 
you in your long absence would have made me happy.” 

“ It would, I know it would, and yet I could not speak 


THE NEW-COMERS. 


113 


it,” Elbridge replied. “ When, with a blight upon my name, 
I left those halls,” pointing to the old homestead standing in 
shadow of the autumn trees, “ I vowed to know them no 
more, that my step should never cross their threshold, that 
my voice should never be heard again in those ancient 
chambers, that no being of all that household should have a 
word from these lips or hands till I could come back a vin- 
dicated man ; that I would perish in distant lands, find a 
silent grave among strangers, far from mother and her I 
loved, or that I would come back with my lost friend, in his 
living form, to avouch and testify my truth and innocence.” 

“And had you no thought of me in that cruel absence, 
dear Elbridge ?” asked Miriam. 

“Of you!” he echoed, now taking her hand, “of you! 
When in all these my wanderings, in weary nights, in lonely 
days, on seas and deserts far away, sore of foot and sick at 
heart, making my couch beneath the stars, in the tents of 
savage men, in the shadow of steeples that know not our 
holy faith, was it not my religion and my only solace, that 
one like you thought of me as I of her, and though all the 
world abandoned and distrusted the wanderer, there was one 
star in the distant horizon which yet shone true, and trer 
bled with a hopeful light upon my path 1” 

“ Are we not each other’s now ?” she whispered softly, as 
she lay her gentle head upon his bosom ; “ and if we have 
erred, and repent but truly, will not He forgive us ?” 

As she lifted up her innocent face to heaven, did not those 
8 


114 


CHANTICLEER. 


gentle tears which fell unheard by mortal ear, from those fair 
eyes, drop in hearing of Him who hears and acknowledges 
the faintest sound of true affection, through all the bound- 
less universe, musically as the chime of holy Sabbath-bells ? 

“You are my dear wife,” he answered, folding her close 
to his heart, “ and if you forgive and still cherish me, happi- 
ness may still be ours ; and although no formal voice has 
yet called us one, by all that’s sacred in the stillness of the 
night, and by every honest beating of this heart, dear Miri- 
am, you are mine, to watch, to. tend, to love, to reverence, 
in sickness, in sorrow, in care, in joy : by all that belongs of 
gayety to youth, in manhood and in age, we will have one 
home, one couch, one fireside, one grave, one God, and one 
hereafter.” 

An old familiar instrument, swept as he well knew by his 
mother’s fingers, sounded at that moment from the home- 
stead, and hand in hand, blending their steps, they returned 
to the Thanksgiving household within. 


CHAPTER TENTH. 


THE CONCLUSION. 

When Elbridge and Miriam re-entered the homestead, 
they found the best parlor, which they had left in humble 
dependence on the light of a single home-made wick, now in 
full glow, and wide awake in every corner, with a perfect 
illumination of lamps and candles ; and every thing in the 
room had waked up with them. The old brass andirons 
stood shining like a couple of bare-headed little grandfathers 
by the hearth ; the letters in the sampler over the mantel, 
narrating the ages of the family, had renewed their color ; 
the tall old clock, allowed to speak again, stood like an 
overgrown schoolboy with his face newly washed, stretching 
himself up in a corner ; the painted robins and partridges 
on the wall, now in full feather, strutting and flying about 


CHANTICLEER. 


lib 

in all the glory of an unfading plumage ; and at the rear of all, 
tie huge back-log on the hearth glowed and rolled in his 
place as happy as an alderman at a city feast. The Pea- 
bodys, too, partook of the new illumination, and were there 
in their best looks, scattered about the room in cheerful 
groups, while in the midst of all, the widow Margaret, her 
face lighted with a smile which came there from far-oft 
years, holding in her hand, as we see an angel in the sunny 
clouds in old pictures, the ancient harpsichord, which till 
now had been laid away and out of use for many a long day 
of sadness. 

While Elbridge and Miriam stood still in w’onder at 
the sudden change of this living pageant, old Sylvester, his 
white head carried proudly aloft, appeared from the sitting- 
room with Mr. Barbary, a quaint figure, freed now of his 
long coat, and bearing no trace of travel on his neat apparel 
and face of cheerful gravity. Leaving the preacher in the 
centre of the apartment, the patriarch advanced quietly 
towards the young people, and addressing himself to Elbridge 
said, “ My children, I have a favor to ask of you.” 

“ Any thing, grandfather I” Elbridge answered promptly. 

“You are sure?” old Sylvester’s eyes twinkled as he 
spoke. 

“ It would be the pleasure and glory of my young days,” 
Elbridge answered again, “ to ^ crown your noble old age, 
grandfather, with any worthy wreath these hands could 
fashion, and not call it a favor either.” 


THK CONCLUSION. 


111 


Old Sylvester, smiling from one to the other, said, “You 
are to be married immediately.” 

The young couple fell back and dropped each the other’s 
hand, which they had been holding. Miriam trembled and 
shrunk the farthest away. 

“You will not deny me?” the grandfather said again. 
“ You are the youngest, and the last whom I can hope to see 
joined in that bond which is to continue our name and race ; 
it is my last -request on earth.” 

At these simple words, turning, and with a fond regard 
which spoke all their thoughts, Miriam and Elbridge took 
again each the other’s hand, and drew close side to side. 
The company rose, and Mr. Barbary was on the point of 
speaking, when there emerged upon the family scene, from 
an inner chamber, as though he had been a foreigner enter- 
ing a fashionable drawing-room, Mr. Tiffany Carrack, in the 
very blossom of full dress; his hair in glossy curl, with 
white neckcloth and waistcoat of the latest cut and tie, coat 
and pants of the purest model, pumps and silk stockings ; 
bearing in his hand a gossamer pocket-handkerchief, which 
he shook daintily as he advanced, and filled the room with a 
strange fragrance. With mincing step, just dotting the 
ground, his whole body shaking like a delicate structure in 
danger every moment of tumbling to the ground, he advanced 
to where Miriam and Elbridge stood before Mr. Barbary. 

“ Why, really, ’pon my life and honor, Miriam, you are 
looking quite charming this evening!” 


118 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ She should look so now, if ever, Tiflfany,” said old Syl- 
ester, “ for she is just about to be married to your cousin 
Elbridge.” 

“ Now, you don’t mean that ?” said Mr. Tiffany, touching 
the tawny tufts tenderly with his perfumed pocket-handker- 
chief. “ Oh, woman ! woman ! what is your name ?” He 
hesitated for a reply. 

“ Perfidy !” suggested Mr. Oliver Peabody. 

“Yes, that’s it. Have I lived to look on this,” Mr. Tif-. 
fany continued ; “ to have my young hopes blighted, the 
rose of my existence cropped, and all that? Is it for this,” 
addressing Miriam directly — he had been talking before to 
the air — “ is it for this I went blackberrying with you in my 
tender infancy ! Is it for this that in the heyday of youth 
I walked with you to the school-house down the road! 
Was it for this that in the prime of manhood I breathed soft 
music in your ear at the witching time of night !” 

As he arrived at this last question, Mopsey, in her new 
gown .of gorgeous pattern, and having laid aside her custom- 
ary broad-bordered cap, with a high-crowned turban of red, 
and yellow cotton handkerchief on her head, appeared at the 
parlor door. Mr. Tiffany paused ; he saw the Moorish 
princess before him ; rallying, however, he was proceeding 
to describe himself as a friendly troubadour, whose affection 
had been responded to, when the Captain placing his mouth 
to his ear, as in confidence, uttered in a portentous whisper, 

“ THE VAT !” 


THE CONCLUSION. 


119 


Mr. Tiffany immediately lost all joint and strength, sub- 
sided into a chair at a distance, and from that moment 
looked upon the scene like one in a trance. 

“ After all,” said Mr. Oliver, glancing at bim, “ I don’t 
see just now that, in any point of view, this young gentleman 
is destined to carry the principles of free government — any- 
where.” 

The family being now all gathered, Mr. Barbary proceeded, 
employing a simple and impressive form in use in that 
family from its earliest history : 

“ You, the Bridegroom and the Bride, who now present 
yourselves candidates of the covenant of God and of your 
marriage before him, in token of your consenting affections 
and united hearts, please to give your hands to one another. 

“ Mr. Bridegroom, the person whom you now take by the 
hand, you receive to be your married wife : you promise to 
love her, to honor her, to support her, and in all things to 
treat her as you are now, or shall hereafter be convinced is 
by the laws of Christ made your duty — a tender husband, 
with unspotted fidelity till death shall separate you. 

“ Mrs. Bride, the person whom you now hold by the hand 
you accept to be your married husband ; you promise to love 
him, to honor him, to submit to him, and in all things to 
treat him as you are now, or shall hereafter be convinced is 
by the laws of Christ made your duty — an affectionate wife, 
with inviolable loyalty till death shall separate you. 

“ This solemn covenant you make, and in this sacred oath 


120 


CHANTICI-EEB. 


bind your souls in the presence of the Great God, and before 
these witnesses. 

“ I then declare you to be husband and wife, regularly 
married according to the laws of God and the Common- 
wealth : therefore, what God hath thus joined together let 
no man put asunder.” 

When these Avords had been solemnly spoken, the widow 
Margaret struck her ancient harpsichord in an old familiar 
tune of plaintive tenderness, and the young bridegroom, 
holding Miriam’s hand in an affectionate clasp, answered the 
music with a little hymn or carol, often used before among 
the Peabodys on a like occasion : 

Entreat me not— I ne’er will leave thee, 

Ne’er loose this hand in bower or hall ; 

This heart, this heart shall ne’er deceive thee, 

This voice shall answer ever to thy call. 

To which Miriam, after a brief pause of hesitation, in that 
tone of chanting lament familiar to her, answered — 

Thy God is mine, where’er tho\i rovest. 

Where’er thou dwellest there too will I dwell ; 

In the same grave shall she thou lovest 
Lie down with him she loves so well. 

Like a cheerful voice answering to these, and wishing, out 
of the mysterious darkness of night, all happiness and pros- 
perity to the young couple, the silver call of Chanticleer 
arose without, renewed and renewed again, as if he could 


THE 00Ntl.l'S10N. 


]21 


never tire of announcing the happy union to all the countr- 
round. 

And now enjoyment was at its height among the Pea- 
bodys, helped by Plenty, who, with Mopsey for chief assist- 
ant, hurried in, with plates of shining pippins, baskets of 
nuts, brown jugs of new cider of home-made vintage ; Mrs. 
Carrack, who had selected the simplest garment in her ward- 
robe, moving about in aid of black Mopsey, tendering re- 
freshment to her old father first, and Mrs. Jane Peabody in- 
sisting on being allowed to distribute the walnuts with her 
own hand. 

The children, never at rest for a moment, frisked to and 
fro, like so many meriy dolphins, disporting in the unaccus- 
tomed candlelight, to which they were commonly strangers. 
They were listened to in all their childish prattle kindly, by 
every one, indulged in all their little foolish ways, as if the 
grown-up Peabodys, for this night at least, believed that they 
were indeed little citizens of the kingdom of heaven, stray- 
ing about this wicked world on parole. Uncle Oliver, once 
spreading his great Declaration-of-Independence pocket-hand- 
kerchief bn his knees, attempted to put them to the question 
as to their learning. They all recognized Dr. Franklin, with 
his spectacles thrown up on his brow, among the signers, 
but denying all knowledge of any thing more, ran away to 
the Captain, who was busy building, a dozen at a time, paper 
packet-ships, and launching them upon the table for a sea. 

In the very midst of the mirthful hubbub old Sylvester 


ClJANTICLEEli. 


cailed Kobert and William to his side, and was heaid to 
whisper, “ Bring ’em in.” William and Robert were gone a 
moment and returned, bearing under heavy head-way, tum- 
bling and pitching on one side constantly, two ancient spin- 
ning-wheels, Mopsey following with snowy flocks of wool and 
spinning-sticks. Old Sylvester arose, and delivering a stick 
and flock to Mrs. Carrack and Mrs. Jane Peabody, requested 
them, in a mild voice and as a matter of course already settled, 
to begin.” A spinning-match ! 

“ Yes, any thing you choose to-night, father.” 

Rolling back their sleeves, adjusting their gowns, the 
wheels being planted on either side of the fireplace, Mrs. 
Jane and Mrs. Carrack, stick in hand, seized each on her 
allotment of wool, and sent the wheels whirling. It was a 
cheerful sight to see the two matrons closing in upon the 
wheel, retiring, closing in again — whose wheel is swiftest, 
whose thread truest ? Now Mrs. Jane — now Mrs. Carrack. 
If either, Mrs. Carrack puts the most heart in her work. 

“ Now she looks like my Nancy,” said old Sylvester in a 
glow, “ as when she used to spin and sing, in the old upper 
chamber.” 

Away they go — whose thread is swiftest, whose thread the 
truest now ? 

While swift and free the contest wages, the parlor-door 
standing open, and beyond that the door of the sitting- 
room, look down the long perspective ! Do you not see in 
the twilight of the kitchen fire a dark head, lighting up, aa 


THE CONCLUSION. 


123 


in flashes, with a glittering row of teeth, with a violent agi- 
tation of the body, with gusty ha-ha’s, and fragments of an 
uproarious chant flying through the door something to this 
eflfect — 

Oh, do fine ladies, how dey do spin — spin — spin, 

Like de gals long ago — long ago ! 

I bet tc’der one don’t win — win — win, 

Kase de diamond-flowers on her fingers grow. 

Lay down your white gloves, take up de wool, 

Eound about de whirly wheel go ; 

Baek’ard and for’ard nimble feet pull. 

Like de niee gals long — long ago! 

Silence follows, in which nothing is observable from that 
quarter more than a great pair of white eyes rolling about 
in the partial darkness. Who was other than pleased that, 
in spite of Mopsey’s decision, old Sylvester determined that 
if either, Mrs. Carrack’s work was done a little the soonest, 
and that her thread was a little the truest ? 

During the contest the old merchant and his wife had 
conversed closely, apart : the green shade had lost its ter- 
rors, and he could look on it steadily, now ; and at the close, 
William Peabody, approaching the flreplace, drew from his 
bosom the old parchment deed, which in his hunger for 
money had so often disquieted his visits to the homestead, 
and thrust it into the very heart of the flame, which soon 
shrivelled it up, and, conveying it out at the chimney, be- 
fore the night was past spread it in peaceful ashes over the 
very grounds which it had so long disturbed. 


124 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ kSo much for that !” said the old merchant, as the last 
flake vanished ; “ and now, nephew,” he addressed himself 
to Elbridge, “ fulfilling an engagement connected with your 
return, I resign to you all charge of your father’s property.” 

“ Did you bring any thing with you from the Gold Re- 
gion ?” Mrs. Carrack interposed. 

“ Not one cent. Aunt,” Elbridge answered promptly. 

“ You may add, William,” pursued Mrs. Carrack, “ the 
sums of mine you have in hand.” 

William Peabody was pausing on this proposition, the 
sums in question being at that very moment embarked in a 
most profitable speculation. 

Upon the very height of the festivity, when it glowed the 
brightest and was most musical with mirthful voices, there 
had come to the casement a moaning sound as if borne 
upon the wind from a distance, — a wailing of anguish, at the 
same time like and unlike that of human suffering. By 
slow advances it approached nearer and nearer to the home- 
stead, and whenever it arose it brought the family enjoy- 
ment to a momentary pause. It had drawn so near that it 
sounded now again, as if in mournful lamentation, at the 
very door, when Mopsey, her dark face almost white, and 
her brow wrinkled with anxiety, rushed in. “ Grandfather,” 
she said, addressing old Sylvester, “blind Sorrel’s dying in 
the door-yard.” 

There was not one in all that company whom the an- 


THE CONCLUSION. 


125 


nouncement did not cause to start : led by old Sylvester, 
they hastily rose, and conducted by Mopsey, followed to the 
scene. Blind Sorrel was lying by the moss-grown horse^ 
trough, at the gate. 

“ I noticed her through the day,” said Oliver, “ wandering 
up the lane as if she was seeking the house.” 

“ The death-agony must have been upon her then,” said 
William Peabody, shading his eyes with his hand. 

“ She remembered, perhaps, her young days,” old Syl- 
vester added, “ when she used to crop the door-yard grass.” 

Mopsey, in her solicitude to have the death-bed of poor 
blind Sorrel properly attended, had brought with her, in 
the event of the paling or obscuration of the moon, a dark 
lantern, which she held tenderly aside, as though the pool 
old creature still possessed her sight ; immovable herself as 
though she had been a swarthy image in stone, while, on the 
other side, William Peabody, near her head, stood gazing 
upon the animal with a fixed intensity, breathing hard and 
watching her dying struggle with a rigid steadiness of feature 
almost painful to behold. 

“ Has carried me to mill many a day,” he said ; “ some 
pleasant hours of my life spent upon her back, sauntering 
along at early day.” 

“Your mother rode her to meeting,” Sylvester addressed 
his second son, “ on your wedding-day, Oliver. Sorrel was 
of a long-lived race.” 


12G 


CHANTICLEER. 


“ She was tlie gentlest horse-creature you ever owned, 
father,” added Mrs. Carrack, turning affectionately towards 
oid Sylvester, “and humored us girls when we rode her as 
though she had been a blood-relation.” 

“ I’m not so sure of that,” Mr. Tiffany Carrack rejoined, 

“ for she has dumped me in a ditch more than once.” 

“ That was your own careless riding. Tiffany,” said the. 
Captain ; “ I don’t believe she had the least ill-will towards 
any living creature, man or beast.” 

It was observed that whenever William Peabody spoke, 
blind Sorrel turned her feeble head in that direction, as 
if she recognized and singled out his voice from all the 
others. 

“ She knows your voice, father, even in her darkness,” 
said the Captain, “ as the sailor tells his old captain’s step on 
deck at night.” 

“ Well she may, Charles,” the merchant replied, “ for she 
was foaled the same day I was born.” 

The old creature moaned and heaved her side fainter and 
fainter. 

“ Speak to her, William,” said the old grandfather. 

William Peabody bent down, and in a tremulous voice 
said, “ Sorrel, do you know me ?” 

The poor blind creature lifted up her aged head feebly 
towards him, heaved her weary side, gasped once, and was 
gone. The moon, which had been shining with a clear and 


THE CONCLUSION. 


m 

level light upon the group of faces, dipped at that rooraent 
behind the orchard-trees, and at the same instant the light 
in the lantern flickering feebly, was extinguished. 

“ What do you mean by putting the light out, Mopsey ?” 
old Sylvester asked. 

“ I knew de old lamp would be goin’ out, Massa, soon as 
ever blind Sorrel die ; I tremble so I do’ no what I’m say- 
ing.” It was poor Mopsey’s agitation which had shaken out 
the light. 

“ Never shall we know a more faithful servant, a truer 
friend, than poor blind Sorrel,” they all agreed ; and bound 
still closer together by so simple a bond as common sym- 
pathy in the death of the poor old blind family horse, they 
returned within the homestead. 

They were scarcely seated again when William Peabody, 
turning to Mrs. Carrack, said, “ Certainly !” referring to the 
transfer of the money, of hers in his hands, to Elbridge, 
“ he will need some ready money to begin the world with.” 

All was cheerful friendship now ; the family, reconciled 
in all its members, sitting about their aged father’s hearth 
on this glorious Thanksgiving night : the gayer mood sub- 
siding, a sudden stillness fell upon the whole house, such as 
precedes some new turn in the discourse. 

Old Sylvester Peabody sat in the centre of the family, 
moving his body to and fro gently, and lifting his white 
head up and down upon his breast ; his whole look and 


128 


CHANTICLEER. 


mann-r strongly arresting the attention of all — of the chih 
dren not the least. After a while the old man paused, snd 
looking mildly about, addrecsed the household. 

“ This ’s a happy day, my children,” he said, “ but th 
seeas it were sown, you must allow an old man to say, 
long, long ago. If one good Being had not died in a far 
country, and a very distant time, we could not have this 
comfort now.” 

The children watched the old grandfather more closely. 

“ I am an old man, and shall be with you, I feel, but for 
a little while yet ; as one who stands at the gate of the 
world to come, looking through, and through, which he 
is soon to pass, will you not allow me to believe that 
I thought of the hopes of your immortal spirits in your 
youth ?” 

As being the eldest, and answering for the rest, William 
Peabody replied, “ We will.” 

“ Did I not teach you then, or strive my best to t^ach, 
that there was but one Holy God ?” 

“ y ou did, father, you did !” the widow Margaret an- 
swered. 

“ That his only Son died for us ?” 

“ Often, often !” said Mrs. Carrack. 

“ That we must love one another as brethren ?” 

“ At morning and night, in winter ?nd summer — by the 
hearth and in the field, you did,” Olivei rejoined. 


THE CONCLUSION. 


“ That there is but one path to happiness and peace here 
and hereafter,” he continued, “ through the performance of 
our duty towards our Maker, and our fellow-men of every 
name, and tongue, and clime, and color ; to love your dear 
Native Land, as she sits happy among the nations, but to 
remember this, our natural homo, is but the ground-nest and 
cradle from which we spread our wings to fly through all 
the earth with hope and kindly wishes for all men. If the 
air is cheerful here, and the sun-light pleasant, let no barrier 
or wall shut it in, but pray God, with reverent hope, it spread 
hence to the farthest lands and seas, till all the people of the 
earth are lighted up and made glad in the common fellow- 
ship of our blessed Saviour, who is, was, and will be ever- 
more — to all men guide, protector, and ensample. May He 
be so to us and ours, to our beloved Home and happy Father- 
land, in all the time to come !” 

The old man bowed his head in presence of his reconciled 
household, and fell into a sweet slumber ; not one of all that 
company but echoed the old man’s prayer — “ May He be so 
to us and ours, to our beloved Home and happy Fatherland 
in all the time to come !” 

On this, on every day of Thanksgiving and Praise, be 
that old man’s blessed prayer in all quarters, among all 
classes and kindred, everywhere repeated : “ May He be so 
to us and ours, to our beloved Home and happy Fatherland 
in all the time to come !” 


9 


130 


CHANTICLEER. 


And when, like that ffood old man, we come to bow our 
heads at the close of L 1 ’ ng, long life, may we, like him, fall 
into a gentle sleep, conscious that we have done the work of 
charity, and spread about our path, wherever it lead, peace 
and good-will among men ! 


I 


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